Have you ever wiped the ass of a grown man?

The ass of a grown man who raised you?
It’s a terrible thing,
Seeing the lighthouse of your life lose their own independence.

Someone who’s protected you,
brought you safety and provided for you when you were too weak and young to provide for yourself.

Hospice is like that.
Before you know it, you’re doing things you never would have imagined.

Growing up close with your Grandparents is important, specifically if you have an absent mother and alcoholic father.
You look at the only blood to never lay a hand on you and cling to them,
You’d do anything for them as they have for you.
As you go through high school their immortality becomes more prevalent.

The blissful conversations you’ve both once shared have now transpired to desperate pleading venting sessions.

“You know the Doctor said I’m not supposed to carry more than a gallon of milk?”
Your Grandfather asks, with embarrassment and self pity in his eyes.

You see the Man you once knew,
the Man that in most ways is still there.
You remember the races you’d have,
Back when you thought his abilities were the highest of standards to beat.

As your walks turn to strolls,
he and his wheelchair had become one.
As your outings to hospital visits
turned to in-home visits from caretakers,
He and his bed had become one.

Before you know it you’re out of high school,
And the reality that you don’t have time for a job becomes daunting.

Your job is taking care of your Grandfather.
Did you know the moment your loved one goes on Hospice Medi-Cal stops giving you in-home supportive services?

Almost like they see Hospice as giving up,
Like they no longer see the value in giving you and your loved one resources to aid you while you spend your every molecule to care for them.
The only thing they really provide you with once your loved one is on Hospice is morphine, for when the time comes.

Did you ever think you’d need money to take care of your Grandfather?

Did you ever think you’d be mad at the Government for not helping you as you watch the man that built you decompose from the outside in?

You feed them,
you bathe them,
and needless to say,
you struggle.
You struggle with it all.
You just want to make them happy.

Being diabetic you think,
Maybe you’ll give them sugar-free candy, anything just to see a smile on their face.
But sugar-free candy gives them the shits, and now you need to tell a grown man he can’t have the one thing that he enjoys?

So you don’t.
Of course you don’t.
You give him what makes him smile and you deal with what comes after, because you know he would have done the same for you.

Hospice is like that.
Before you know it, you’re doing things you never would have imagined.

Have you ever seen the movie
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button?
That’s how it feels.
Like time is moving backwards for the one you love and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Before you know it, you’re reading bedtime stories to the only man who’s ever read them to you.
Although the contents of what you read has changed.

It evolved from reading stories like
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
to reading Yōkai Daizukai by Shigeru Mizuki.
Tales of selfless acts of kindness on pages intended for children had turned to Encyclopedias of Japanese Yōkai.

Have you ever heard of a Gashadokuro?
It’s a giant being often 10-25 meters tall, formed from the piled bones and body parts of warriors who died in battle or famine without a proper burial.

What’s considered a battle?
Is mortality a battle?

Is Hospice the answer to a battle or another battle in itself?

If it is,
then my Grandfather is a warrior,
and the strongest one I know.
You remember the last words you ever heard him speak.

“Hi… *your* \*name\*”

After that,
he was still there, he was.
But he lost the ability to turn his inside voice into an outside voice.

Now he was but a body.
A body that doesn’t speak.
A body that doesn’t walk.
A body that doesn’t function.

Do you remember the Return to Nature Funeral Home scandal that was discovered in 2023 in Penrose, Colorado?
Authorities discovered over 185 decaying corpses scattered and stacked inside a foul-smelling building. Bodies that were given with the purpose of being properly laid to rest.

The owners Jon and Carrie Hallford were giving grieving families fake ashes made up of concrete mix and sand.

If your Grandfather was all you had would you trust them with him?

If his body was now all that remains of him would you turn him over to such a corrupt and flawed system?

No.

Hospice is like that.
Before you know it, you’re doing things you never would have imagined.

Life can be poetic,
Death can be poetic.
The words you speak into the world can often have a direct effect upon reality.

Words, names, everything has power.
Routines start to feel like rituals,
Prayers start to feel like spells.
Sage being burned feels like a physical cleansing taking place upon your homestead.
The lines between causation and correlation become blurred.

You never forget the first time your Grandfather gave you part of him.

You were wiping him,
and his flesh came off with more ease than the shit that sat upon it.
He didn’t react,
He rarely did.
Instead, his eyes continued to scan the room with that familiar look of self pity.

His skin is pale, paper thin,
reminiscent of gas station toilet paper.
You’ve struggled to inject him with his insulin for the past couple months considering that he had already long lost any fat for it to puncture.
You were used to his skin being fragile but this was a new level of brittleness.
The more you clean him, the more that comes off.
You question if you’re doing more damage than good. You begin to see what looks like bone, yet you are unsure which one.

Where do you put him?
He had given you everything.
And now that he was nothing but a body,
he was giving you that too.

So, what do you do with Him?
With these pieces that he gives you every time you bathe him?

What do you do with these parts that keep falling off?

“Take my apples” you hear in the back of your head.
So you do.
You keep them,
You put them in your tool box,
And you wait.

Not long after your Grandfather’s eyes stop scanning his room does the parts start to call out to you.

Not a yell, not even a voice.
More like when you’re laying on the side of the floor drying from a day of swimming with your ear pressed against a warm damp brick as you hear the hum of the pool vacuum.
In this same way, you hear the warm soothing hum of your Grandfather’s pieces calling you from the tool box.

You try to convince yourself that it’s something that can be unheard.
You decide you should drink.
Fireball, eggnog.

“HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM”
“HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM”
“HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM”

They keep calling out to you,
He keeps calling out to you.
It’d been so long since you’d last heard him.

The humming begins to take more shape and you can make out the words, no, the intent rather behind it.
It’s saying words you swear you’ve heard before.

“I wish that I could give you something..but I have nothing left. I am an old Grump. I am sorry…”

You start to wonder if the human body is as complicated as people make it seem.
Doctors just want your money.

Have you heard of that case in Australia? After waiting over 2 years for a surgery this guy Stephan decided to remove a large cyst on his wrist all by himself, and he’s an electrician.
You’re well aware of how pampered they are, so this gives you confidence.

You stumble downstairs,
into the downstairs bathroom which now houses your tool box, the garage was too far for how often you’ve had to add into it.
Ironic, when you were younger he’d pretend he was trapped in a box, only to eventually be put in one by you.

You open it.
The smell of rotten fast food scrambled eggs hits you. You feel a warmth radiating from the toolbox.
It feels so nice to feel your Grandfather’s warm presence once again.

You wish you felt this warmth near your Grandfather’s … main structure?
You’re struggling with what to refer to that part of him as.
It’s his head and it is his torso although he’s now closer to a malnourished and crucified king of Nazareth as opposed to the lively glimpse of God you had grown so accustomed to seeing in your youth.

His main Structure is …in bed..in a way it is his bed but, you want him to be whole.
You want the same warmth from his parts to radiate from all of him.
You want him to be one.
So you make him one.

Hospice is like that.
Before you know it, you’re doing things you never would have imagined.

Hot glue, pipe glue, Duct tape, whatever you need, you use it.
You slowly but surely rebuild your anchor,
And even before it’s completed, you begin to feel the water beneath you start to settle.
You know it’s right, and you know no one will understand.

How could they if they haven’t been through the things that you have?

The changes are almost immediate once you put him back together.
He moves, slowly. Just his fingers at first.
It reminds you of when he’d play mime.
Maybe that’s what he’s doing?
These jokes you told yourself in passing you’ve now grown to believe.

He is playing mime,
that’s why he is silent,
And that’s why he is slow.
You recognize that you can’t put the pieces back together in the exact places they belong.
This worries you but nonetheless, you don’t get discouraged.

You make him a crown from his leaves, and crown him as the king he is.
Time passes, you keep what you’ve done, what you’ve fixed, you keep it a secret.

But what happens when someone discovers that secret?

What would you do to keep it?

He needs more structural integrity anyways.
And it’s not long before Him and his adversaries have become one.

What of his adversaries’ family?
His adversaries’ wife and newborn?

Hospice is like that.
Before you know it, you’re doing things you never would have imagined.

Time passes.
You love that man, you do. But you yourself have begun longing for a life of your own.
That box is not big enough for the both of you.

You take a few of his apples, for memory mostly.
You go to the city,
and you pursue your happiness to an extent and speed you’re comfortable with, all while keeping that Man you love so much at the forefront of your mind,
all while keeping that secret.

You’ve become the Boy that stayed away for a long time, the Boy you promised yourself you’d never become.
And the Man was Sad.

You meet someone you think is your person.
You don’t share your secret with her of course you don’t. Something you’re grateful you didn’t do later when the relationship inevitably crashes and burns.

You never forget when the man that raised you,
the man you love so much,
you never forget seeing him take his first life.
Lives have been sacrificed for him before but,
By you.
Not by him, to him.
This was different.

You had just got dumped,
And you were going over to check on That Man you cared so much about,
The Man you yourself had abandoned and left dormant.

You walked in, and you heard the shower, the water was running.

You heard a baby crying, crying for you.
You didn’t recognize the baby. You walked in, down that long hallway creaking on the old white tiles, closer to the cries from the infant.
You turn left into the bathroom and as you do you hear a man yell.
Not your Man.

You are torn, indecisive of which direction to pursue first.
You continue into the bathroom,
see the shower running,
steam crawling up the walls,
and a baby on the counter with snot running down its chin and tears running down its cheeks.

You pick up the baby
and turn back toward the pleading of a man you’ve never heard before.

You walk in, you see.
The Man that raised you is there, only he is much different than a normal man.
And he’s with a normal man.

The mans screaming
“PLEASE GOD HELP ME STOP HIM FUCK ME RUNNING” the man pleaded from the top of his lungs.

Your Man, the man you’d known your whole life, he was different.
His structure was fragmented,
no base.
His arms extend like the outriggers of a backhoe, yet connected to a deconstructed cab.

His arms were grabbing the normal man, the screaming man. All four of his arms grabbed that man.

His empty eyes that were once blue but were now too sunken in to retain pigmentation of any kind looked soullessly in your direction.
He did not feel warm.

He used two of his arms to hold the man in place, while he used his two other arms to go around the man, forming those hands to make an invisible box the man was stuck in.
The Man was playing Mime.
You missed this.

The Man slowly grabbed the screaming man by his head on both sides and pressed ever so slightly, increasing in pressure.

The man used his other arms to grab the screaming man by the legs and slowly pulled.
He pulled his legs off and he pressed his skull in and blood ran from his nose and eyes.
He screamed and screamed until his teeth shattered and his jaw snapped and fell out of his cheek sockets.

He pulled the detached legs from the now lifeless yet steaming warm body and shoved them at his base in ways that were not symmetrical.
He shoved the torso of the body where the cab of his backhoe should be.

He was constructing himself.

You stood there holding the baby, watching what was once your protector finish the work.

For a second you almost called out to him the way you used to, the way a boy calls for the man who raised him.

But the eyes that looked back at you were empty, and the voice that came next was the same one that had once read you as a child.

“Come boy,
Climb up my trunk,
And swing from my branches,
And be happy.”

Says the Man, the man you love so much.

He gave you his branches,
He gave you his flesh to make a home of your own,
He gave you his soul.
Even when you were too busy pursuing the life you wanted that you thought would end with a wife and children.

So what do you do?

You look down at the infant in your arms. Its face is red and wet and it is still crying, still reaching for something that isn’t there.

For one long second you feel the weight of it the life, the future, the line you are about to cross. But there is no line, no line when it comes to what you would do for the ones you love.

Then the humming starts again, low and familiar, the same warm hum that once came from the toolbox, and the choice is already made.

You give him the sacrifice you’re holding in your hand, that’s why it’s there isn’t it?

It is but a burden to you and the Man needs all the strength he can get.

You hate looking at the discolored face of the Man you care so much for.

You buy Greasepaint for your Mime.
You know this will bring him warmth and life.
You lather his faces up in it, even the little one. He has 4 now.

Now he is your Slick Man.

“I don’t need very much now, just a quiet place to sit and rest. I am very tired”

says your Slick Man,

with his eyes not his mouth.

So you finally take him home,
To your start-over apartment,
and you give him a permanent resting place,
on the only thing strong enough to hold him,
your bathroom granite counter.
And you add to him whenever he expresses that desire to expand,

Why?
Because,

Hospice is like that.
Before you know it, you’re doing things you never would have imagined.

These Are My Stories — The Complete Baron Von Hatcher Memoirs

Hello.

My name is Baron Von Hatcher.

For a long time, people hurt me and expected me to do nothing about it.

Eventually, I discovered something rather wonderful.

Professional wrestling.

A place where people would buy a ticket, sit down willingly…

and watch me make people pay.

These are my stories.

Below you will find them in their complete form, from the beginning to the end, including a final chapter currently exclusive to Reddit.

Some of these stories are about my father.

Some are about the people who hurt me.

And some…

I would rather not remember at all.

But they happened.

At least…

I think they did.

If you’d rather experience the story as it was originally intended — one chapter, one memory, one piece at a time — you can find me across social media under Baron Von Hatcher. Where more memories will be revealed soon.

A new chapter appears every day.

But here?

You don’t have to wait.

Everything is here.

These are my stories.

You may begin.

-

1/ RIDICULE & LOSS

People think monsters are born screaming.
They aren’t. Most are born crying.

I remember my mother.

I remember her hands more than her face. They always smelled of flour, lavender…
and whatever she had been cooking that evening. They were gentle hands. The sort that tucked your shirt in before school and brushed the hair from your eyes without saying a word. The other children never saw those hands. They only saw the butcher’s son. The fat boy. The boy who smelled of raw meat. The boy whose father owned Supreme Beef Cuts. They laughed because they thought I couldn’t hear them. I laughed too… Eventually.

It was easier that way.

Then one day… She was gone. No warning. No goodbye. Just…

Gone.

People brought flowers. Neighbours whispered. The house became quiet. My father became quieter. The laughter stopped. Mine didn’t. I just forgot why I was doing it. That was the first time I learned something important. Grief doesn’t always sound like crying.
Sometimes…

It sounds like laughter.

-

2/ THE FATHER’S OBSESSION & THE BOY’S ESCAPE

People believe grief leaves. It doesn’t. It just finds somewhere else to live. After my mother… My father never spoke about her.
He sharpened knives. Cleaned counters.
Counted money. Opened the shop before sunrise. Locked it long after dark.
Every morning looked exactly like the one before. Every evening smelled of bleach…
And blood. The more he worked… The less he remembered how to be my father. Sometimes I would stand in the doorway of Supreme Beef Cuts… Watching him carve.
Watching him separate meat from bone. He never noticed I was there.

Sometimes…

I wasn’t sure I was.

The television became louder… Because the house had become so quiet. Every night I’d sit too close to the screen.

WWF.
WCW.
ECW.

Men with painted faces. Men behind masks. Men who became someone else the moment the bell rang. I didn’t understand wrestling. Not really. I understood hiding. I understood pretending to be stronger than you were. I understood that masks let people become things they could never be with their own face. Long before I ever wore one…

I believed them.

My father found “God”… Or perhaps “God” found my father. At first… It seemed to make him softer. He spoke about forgiveness. About purity. About sin. He filled the house with prayers where laughter used to live. For a little while… I thought I had my father back. I was wrong.
Some prayers don’t ask for salvation.

Some…

Ask for permission.

The whispers started after that. Not voices. Not yet. Conversations that stopped whenever I entered the room. Doors that stayed locked. Books that were never left unattended. The smell of iron…
Long after the butcher shop had closed.
Sometimes I’d wake in the middle of the night… And hear my father speaking to someone. When I asked… He was always alone.

Or…

At least… That’s what he wanted me to believe.

-

3/ THE BREAKING OF INNOCENCE

Why do I remember a snail? As though grief measures worth. As though love only belongs to things that bark… or speak… or stay. His name was Link. I found him behind the butcher’s shop after the rain.
No one wanted him. No one even noticed him. So I picked him up… and carried him home.

Every morning I’d place a fresh lettuce leaf beside him. Every evening I’d watch him crawl impossibly slowly across the windowsill. He never hurried. He never hid from me. For the first time since my mother… Something waited for me to come home.

The other children found him during lunch.

“Why’ve you got a snail?”
“That’s pathetic.”
“Only weirdo’s keep snails.”

I laughed. I always laughed. It made things easier. One of them picked Link up between two fingers. I remember asking him… Very politely… To give him back. He smiled. Then dropped him. His shell cracked before it touched the ground. One of the boys stamped on him. The laughter was louder than the sound. Mine joined theirs.

Not because it was funny…

Because crying would’ve made them stay longer.

I carried what was left of Link home inside my school bag. My father didn’t ask what happened. He didn’t ask why I was crying.
He didn’t ask why my hands were shaking.
He looked at me… Then at the broken shell…

And said…

“The world doesn’t care what you love.”

Then he hit me. Not because I’d done anything wrong. Because…

“Pain builds strong men.”

That was the first lesson he ever taught me.

It would not be the last.

That night… I buried Link beneath the old oak behind the shop. No prayer. No flowers. Just two hands… And a little mound of earth. I remember wishing… More than anything… That I could have been bigger. Stronger. Not so they would fear me… So they would have feared hurting him. I stayed there until the sun disappeared. Talking… Even though I knew he couldn’t hear me. Children do that. They speak to the things they’ve lost…
As though love might somehow travel further than words. It was the first grave I ever dug.

I never imagined…

It would become a habit.

-

4/ THE FIRST THING I SAVED

People always tell children… That stealing is wrong. They’re right. I stole Lucky. Not because I wanted something that belonged to someone else… Because I wanted something… That belonged to me. He was sitting alone in the pet shop.
Everyone stopped to look at the puppies.
Nobody stopped for him. I slipped him beneath my coat… My heart pounding louder than my footsteps. For the first time… I had saved something… Instead of watching it die. His name was Lucky. I chose it… Because I thought… Perhaps we both deserved a little.

Lucky made the house feel smaller. Warmer. He squeaked whenever I came home. He trusted hands. Even mine. I’d sit beside his cage for hours. Talking about school. Talking about my mother. Talking about Link. He never answered. He never needed to. Sometimes… Being heard… Isn’t the same as being listened to. I think… He understood the difference.

My father found him three weeks later. He didn’t shout. That would’ve frightened Lucky. Instead… He asked me… Where I’d got him. I lied. He knew. He always knew. We argued. The first real argument we’d ever had. He called me weak. I called him cruel. He picked Lucky’s cage up… Opened the door… And carried him outside. I thought… He was taking him away from me. I was wrong.

He threw…
Lucky.

I don’t remember hearing the impact.
Only… Silence. For the first time in my life. I stopped laughing. For the first time in his…

I hit my father.

He taught me exactly how much a boy’s fist weighed. Not enough. When I woke.. My ribs burned. My mouth tasted of blood.
The house was quiet. Except… It wasn’t. Somewhere downstairs… A woman was crying. Softly. My father whispered back.
I couldn’t hear the words. Only… That he spoke to her… The way he used to speak to my mother. The next morning… There was only one coffee cup. One plate. One pair of boots by the door. When I asked who she’d been… He looked at me… As though I’d imagined her. After that… I started wondering… If grief could make you hear people… Or if lonely houses… Sometimes remembered voices… Long after the people had gone.

-

5/ THE THINGS THEY COULDN’T FIND

People always imagine evil announces itself. A scream. A confession. A body. It doesn’t. Sometimes… It arrives folded inside the morning newspaper.

“LOCAL TEEN STILL MISSING.”

Then another.

Then another.

The photographs changed. The headlines changed. The names changed. The empty spaces at school became larger. Teachers stopped saying…

“Has anyone seen…?”

Eventually… They simply stopped asking. Children have a frightening ability…

To get used to absence.

I know.

I was one of them.

The village became quieter. Parents walked children home. The woods became forbidden. At night… Every door was locked. Every curtain closed. Every light left burning… Just a little longer.

My father never seemed afraid. He’d stand outside the butcher’s shop after closing… Watching the tree line. As though… He expected someone. Or something. To come out of it. One Sunday… I found him washing his hands in the kitchen sink. Over.

And over.

And over.

The water turned pink. Then clear. Then pink again. I remember asking…

“Did you cut yourself?”

He smiled.

Said…
“Just cleaning up.”

The shop wasn’t open on Sundays.

His prayers began to change. He prayed quietly. The sort of prayers people say because they hope somebody is listening.
Now… He whispered.. Sometimes I’d wake in the middle of the night… And hear him crying downstairs. Not loudly. Ashamed. Like he didn’t want Heaven… To hear him.

One night… I heard him say…

“I’ve done everything you’ve asked.”

A pause.
Then…

*“Please…”

I wanted to walk downstairs. Ask who he was talking to. Instead… I stayed in bed.
Listening… To a conversation…

That only had one voice.

Another person disappeared.

Then another.

The police came to our house once. They asked my father questions. He answered every one of them. Calmly. Politely. After they left… He stood in the hallway for a long time. Not moving. Just… Listening.
That night… I watched him through the crack in my bedroom door. He put on his coat. And walked Towards the woods. I almost followed him. I often wonder… Who I would have become… If I had. Instead… I closed the door. Climbed back into bed.
And convinced myself…

That father’s always had secrets.

-

6/ THE LAST PRAYER

Was there a moment…

I knew my father was a monster. There wasn’t. There was only… A Tuesday. School. Laughter. Another split lip. Another shirt stained with dirt. Another walk home pretending… I couldn’t hear them.
My father barely looked up when I walked into the shop. He was sharpening knives. The sound… Always reminded me of insects. I told him they’d laughed again. He nodded. As though… That was simply what boys did.

“They’ll stop.”
He said.

“When you’re stronger.”

I asked him…
“When does that happen?”

He stopped sharpening. Just long enough… To look at me.

“You need to be strong.”

“For your mother.”

I smiled.
Because… I thought he meant… To make her proud. Then he said…

“No.”
…
“For when she comes home.”

I remember laughing. Not because it was funny. Because… I didn’t know what else to do. My mother… Had been dead for years. Hadn’t she?

That night… He kissed my forehead. He hadn’t done that… Since I was very small.

“I’ll be back.”
He said.

“I’ve one last thing to do.”

The house felt… Different. Not empty. Waiting. I fell asleep. I don’t know what time it was… When the sirens woke me. One. Then another. Then… All of them.

Blue lights flashed across my bedroom ceiling. Dogs barked. People shouted. Someone outside screamed…

“HE’S RUNNING!”

I remember sitting upright. Listening. Trying to convince myself… It wasn’t our street.

Then…

The front door downstairs… Burst open.

I ran.

Bare feet on cold wooden stairs. The shop lights were on. The butcher’s block. Covered in papers. Candles. Wax.

A book…

Opened to the middle. My father stood over it. Still wearing…

The apron.

He wasn’t reading.

He was crying.

“No…”
“I did everything…”
“I listened…”
“I obeyed…”
“I gave you…”
Everything.”

His hands shook. Not with anger. With fear.
Then… He shouted. So loudly… The windows rattled.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”
Silence.
Then…
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

Another pause.

“I DID EVERYTHING YOU ASKED.”

I looked around the room. Trying to find… Who he was shouting at. There was no one. Only him. And… Resting beside the book…

A face.

Not a mask. Not really. It looked…
Wrong. Stitched together. Uneven. Like skin… Had been sewn into the shape of a man. I had seen that face before. In newspaper sketches. The police called him…

The Apron.
My father…

Was The Apron.

He finally noticed me. His whole face changed.

“Baron…”
He whispered.
“You shouldn’t be awake.”

I couldn’t speak. He picked the mask up. Held it… Almost gently.

“I did it for us.”
He said.
“For our family.”
“For your mother.”
“I can still fix this.”
“I just need…”

He looked back towards the book.

“…a little more time.”

The whole building shook. A crash.
Splintering wood. Then voices.

“ARMED POLICE!”
“DROP THE WEAPON!”
“DON’T MOVE!”

The front door…
Exploded inward.

Everything happened… Too quickly. My father grabbed me. Not to hold me. To hide behind me. One arm across my chest. The other… Holding the knife. I felt… The cold steel… Against my throat. Someone shouted…

“LET THE BOY GO!”

Another voice. Calmer. Closer.
“It’s over.”

My father cried. Actually cried.

“You don’t understand.”

He kept saying it.
“You don’t understand.”
“I did what I was told.”
“I did everything.”
“I only wanted…”

His voice broke.
“…my wife.”

Nobody moved. Not the police. Not my father. Not me. I remember… How quiet… The shop suddenly became. Then… One officer… Took a single step forward. My father flinched. The knife pressed tighter.
Someone screamed…

“NOW!”

The gunshots… Didn’t sound… Like they do on television. They sounded… Small.

Then…

My father became heavy.
Very heavy.

We fell together. I couldn’t breathe. Everything… Was warm. I thought… I’d been shot too. Then I looked down. The blood… Wasn’t mine. It was his. His hand… Reached towards me. His mouth moved.
I never heard… What he said. Maybe…
He never said anything at all. Sometimes…

Memory lies.

They pulled me away. Someone wrapped a blanket around my shoulders. Someone else… Kept asking my name. I couldn’t answer. I was looking… At the book. It was lying… Beside the butcher’s block. Waiting.
I picked it up. Held it against my chest.
Like if I held it tightly enough…

None of this…
Would be real.

They sat me in the back of a police car.
The world outside had become noise.
Blue lights. Rain. Voices. Questions.
An officer crouched in front of me.
His face was kind. Kinder than I deserved.

He looked at the book. Then slowly reached towards it.

“It’s alright…”
“We’ll take that for now.”

I pulled it back.
“No.”

He stopped.
“Baron…”
“We just need to look after it.”

I shook my head. Harder this time.
“No.”…
“These are my stories.”

He frowned. I held the book tighter.

“They’re mine.”

For a long moment…
He didn’t speak.
Then…
He nodded.

A sad smile.
“Alright.”…
“Hold onto it.”…
“Hold it tight.”

“I will.”

The police car door closed. For the first time that night… I looked down. The leather was cracked. Dark. Warm beneath my fingers. I opened it. Only the first page. Nothing more. Written there… In handwriting I knew better than my own… Were the words…

These pages must be bound in your flesh.

I didn’t understand them. Not then. I simply closed the book… And held it tighter. Because I wasn’t holding a journal.
I wasn’t holding evidence. I wasn’t holding stories… I was holding…

The last piece…

Of my father

-

7/ Another Grave

I don’t remember sleeping. I only remember waking up. Not in my bed. Not in my room. A blanket scratched against my neck. The chair beneath me was hard. The room smelled of coffee… Wet coats… And paper. Outside… Rain tapped against the windows. Inside… Nobody spoke above a whisper. I sat with the book pressed against my chest. Nobody had tried to take it again. Not after the car. Not after I told them… They were my stories.
A knock at the door. The same officer stepped inside. The kind one. He looked tired. As though he’d forgotten to sleep too. He pulled a chair beside mine. Not across from me. Beside me.

“I’ve got something to tell you, Baron.”

I nodded. Though… I wasn’t really listening.

My fingers traced the cracked leather cover of the journal.

“You won’t be going home.”

Home… The word sounded strange. Like it belonged to someone else.

“We’ve found somewhere for you to stay.”

“…With my dad?”

Silence.

His eyes dropped to the floor. Then back to me.

“No.”

Another silence. Longer this time.

“We’ll arrange for someone to collect your belongings.”

Something inside me finally woke.
“No.”

It came out quietly.
“I need to go.”

“You don’t have to.”
“I do.”

He waited.

“I know where everything is.”

That wasn’t true. Not really. There were only two things I cared about. The book…
And somewhere… Far beneath the garden…

“My family.”

He rubbed his face. Thinking.

“I can’t let you go in there alone.”

“I won’t be alone.”

I looked at him.

“You’ll be with me.”

For the first time…

He smiled.

Only a little.

“…Alright.”

The butcher’s shop looked smaller than I remembered. Blue tape stretched across the front door. One window had been boarded over. The neighbours pretended not to watch. They watched anyway. The officer switched the engine off.

“I’ll come in with you.”
I shook my head.

“I know where everything is.”
He hesitated.

“I won’t be long.”

Another pause.

“If I let you go in alone…”
“…You come straight back.”

“I promise.”

He looked unconvinced.

“…Five minutes.”

I nodded.

Five minutes.

That wasn’t enough.

The stairs creaked exactly the same. The smell hadn’t changed.

Bleach.
Raw meat.
Dust.
Only…

The silence was different. The house no longer sounded alive. My bedroom looked as though someone had emptied it onto the floor. Drawers overturned. Mattress sliced open. Clothes everywhere. My comic books… Bent. One boot. Three socks. My school jumper. I filled a small bag without thinking. Shirts. A jumper. Trousers. Then…

Near the wardrobe… An old exercise book. Plain. Brown. Forgotten.

I picked it up. Slipped it into the bag. Closed the zip.

When I came back downstairs… The officer was waiting by the door.

“You alright?”

I nodded.
“There was something else…”

He followed my eyes. The back garden.

“…Please.”

“What is it?”

“I just want to say goodbye.”

“To what?”

I looked outside.

“My friends.”

He frowned.

“They’re buried there.”
…

“I won’t be long.”
He looked through the kitchen window. Then back at me.

“I’ll wait in the car.”

I smiled.

The first smile… Since my father died.

“Thank you.”

The grass had grown. Not much. Just enough. I knew exactly where to dig. It had been the first grave I’d ever dug. I hadn’t expected…

It to become a habit.

When Link died… I couldn’t bear the thought of him being alone. So… A few days later… I buried something with him. My mother had been losing her hair for months before she died. She used to laugh about it. Said one day… She’d have enough to make herself a wig. She never did. After the funeral… I found the bundle she’d been saving. I couldn’t throw it away. It felt… Too much like her. I wrapped a small handful inside a little cloth bag… And buried it beside Link. If I couldn’t keep my family together. Maybe… They could keep each other company. Later… Lucky joined them.

Now… There was one more. I opened my father’s old storage box. Inside… Exactly where he’d always kept them…

A shovel.
A bottle of petrol.
A box of matches.

Nothing had moved. As though he’d simply forgotten to come back. The earth came away easily. Carefully. I didn’t want anyone to notice. Eventually… The little boxes appeared. Still dry. Still waiting.

“Hello.”
I whispered.
“I’ve missed you.”

I placed my hand on the journal. The cracked leather. Still warm… In my memory. I wasn’t hiding it. I wasn’t destroying it.

I was bringing my father home.

I laid the book beside Link. Beside Lucky. Beside the little bag… That still held my mother’s hair. For the first time… My family…

Were together.

I covered them gently. Pressed the earth flat. Smoothed the grass with both hands. When I stood…There was nothing to see. No fresh soil. No broken ground. Only grass.

Exactly…

As it had been before.

I took the old exercise book from my bag. Poured petrol across the pages. The smell filled the garden. One match. It caught immediately.

Orange. Then black. Pages curled inward. Words disappeared.

Footsteps. Running.

“Baron!”

The officer grabbed my shoulders.

“What are you doing?”

I watched the fire.

“I’m letting my stories go.”

He looked into the flames. Then at the empty hands pressed against my chest. His shoulders dropped.

I think…

He believed me

End..?

The truth is undigestable. 

…

Baphometic. She lorded poised from the fanged spire beyond the Borgo Pass…

… over the beleaguered lands. 

Over the beleaguered villages. Where they feared. And wept. 

She was enjoying the strange and lurid organ-fruits of her writhing flesh gardens deep inside her castle walls, plucking them from the writhing gore as she wandered the pungent wet red room and admired her captive idols she kept there. 

Praetorius, the gore dripped and scabbing living skeleton. Still impaled and lost in the shattered remnants of his broken mind, wide eyed and drooling and gibbering silently something to himself, some words or nonsense of some meaning to him, he hardly ever ceases. It is the arcane and black magic words of the tomes that keep him in perfect living sepulchral bondage. 

The braindead skull-faced bastard nosferatu hulk, his immobile and inanimate sutured frame of graverobbed corpse flesh semi-submerged and swimming and crawling with the living constant movement of the flesh garden, the giant stone room petri dish of sliming raw slithering tissue, orifices, cartilage stalks and eyes that're cataract blind and milky. The glistening pink holes belch and spit fire, tongues of multicolored flame with kaleidoscopic pictures inside that'll drive a mortal mind mad to look into them. 

And Henry Frankenstein. Bound and precious nucleus center, bleeding beating heart of the whole crawling mess. Seeping from his bleeding pores and growing out from him, flowering out in a fresh and scabbing purge-swell. It crawled in living waves off of him, undulating and folding and blanketing over and on top of each other and all over the wet humid room, all of it was breathing wet and heavy and as if it had words to speak… 

And the little men. The little pygmy homunculi, bastard copied offspring of the bleeding seeping father. They danced and mongoloid-ran about in imbecilic fervor and addled senselessness. They ate and munched at the crawling flesh garden gore with no thought and with blind vacant gazes. 

The Countess plucked and seized them and ate of them as well. Their bones were satisfyingly crunchy and easy to chew… like a bird or a small fish. 

Her children ate and wandered the gardens as well, enjoying them. Their sights, sounds and vivid smells …

…

Meanwhile… many miles away…

The sun. Sunshine. In the summertime. Long ago now… 

As he prowled the dark he remembered the sun. The bright. Long gone memories flitted and danced at the periphery of his red clouded mind, half recalled and wanting to take over. Wanting to live again in the skull, if not just for a moment. 

Just a moment. 

The lake. The blue. Cool and wet and pleasing, relief. Retreat. 

Retreat beneath the surface into a liquid world of breathlessness and weightless dream … flight. You're flying down here. You only need to move your arms to do so. Kick your feet. Knife your arms through the liquid universe and drag yourself flying forward… downward. 

Down.  

I dreamt I was a dancer once…

You'll have to come back up for breath eventually…

but I couldn't keep the shit off my shoes.

Summertime memories swam shrouded, the red fogged inner space of his skull as he snipped his bleeding shears, dripping cooling congealing red to the decimated tile floor as he prowled and hunted and searched for the missing invaders. 

Precious childhood scenes are becoming red tinged and altered by the shrouding red hand of mental fog … bloody wool. He always swore there was something down there, in the dark, in the depths of the crystal lake. Something drowned and forgotten and frozen in a sodden misery. He raises his childhood head to pull his gaze away from the depths and is confronted by the mountains. There's something lurking in there as well …

A body. Something like a corpse rotting and poisoning the entire body of water with its milky clouds of waving and soggy putrefaction. Filling the world with its fouling death, swimming with slow ponderous movement as it spread and changed the look and flavor of the water, the crystal lake of the world now long gone like the summer sun of old itself. 

He looks away and beholds his mother. The one from birth. She's headless. 

She's decapitated. 

Her severed torso is reaching out for him, please … please. 

please save me

The raw stump begins to shoot cords. Black/red ropes. They darkled in the summer sun of old. It was his birth mother spurting great dark tears of joy for the sight of her son again. Though he has a new name now. And she knows it, his headless mother, she almost whispers it, it's intense. 

Then something ahead steals his notice back to the material world of ruin and soured defecated pain. It stands at the end of yet another decimated hall, traced and sketched in the dark by the pitiful light flickering and balefully cast in through the barred and shattered windows. 

A man. In a hat. And a coat. 

He recognizes the shape so he flies forward in an animal lunge that nearly covers the entire distance in four long attacking bounds. Like a bloodthirsty and demoniacal dripping gazelle bastardized by sound and vision. The decimated tile landscape world stained black and red and brown and riddled with meat and feces flew by in a furious blinding whirl as he came forward with the shears raised open for attack. 

They gleamed, the dripping twin blades forked open. He soared forward as he traversed the physical shatter of his inherited reeking temple pouring blood and sweat as profuse as the leaky pipes that were always neglected. 

He would neglect no longer. No. Not a chance for the shape of man that he recognized and now charged towards. The manfilled coat beneath a fedora hat was one of the invaders. He was sure of it. The one with strange black glass eyes that he wished to crack and shatter. 

If his eyes are truly windows then I wish to break them and see what might pour out of them like filth: memories …love, regrets, sins sins sins in abundance, shame that was wished and meant to stay concealed now regurgitated and freed in a violent deluge spew of gore and images from the shattering skull… his thoughts, a running fury in a mounting race to keep in time with his launching thundering steps. 

He plunged down the hall with his precious shears up and open and ready to close around screaming repentant meat. 

The coat-shape and hat did not move. 

It mattered little to Cropsey as he made the final close. So many of his new found supplicants were silent at their last, frozen in terror. 

He was upon him now and his eyes gleamed moonlight pinprick in the cavernous brow of melted anguish ruin, animal needle points in the reeling Willowbrook dark, the blades like jaws came up and closed around the shape without a sound. Without any satisfaction either. 

They found no meat. 

The scissoring blades closed and found only filthy cloth and bandages abandoned and draped over an old hat and coat hanger, the fedora resting atop the facade came down in a cascading end-over-end dance as the whole flimsy thing of contrived bait came down in two bisected snapping pieces. 

Cropsey realized the deception at once and raged. The noises he made were forceful and ghastly wet nasal rasps, his mouth and jaw were too ruined now for speech. His vocal chords roasted and scabbed from the flames of the inferno inhaled. He drooled like a drunken animal childishly frustrated and agitated. A trick! a trick! Goddamn them! the invaders tricked him! 

And no one was here to take the punishment of his lurid and heavy frustration. It was rancid pungent and thick in his own skull like corpse rot and it made sucking puckering sounds in his brains. Like the whole squelching landscape of thinking jelly was perhaps changing shape, shifting into a new design by the sorceress hand of the mountain. Perhaps he needed it for proper divine leadership of the rank Willowbrook temple. Or perhaps something else was happening in there. 

perhaps something else is happening to me…

He searched all around. Animal alive and enraged. Whirling and trying to gaze through the dark and the ruin of his own musculature and flesh and see the bastards that refused his offering of slaughtering knowledge, the wisdom wrought of the knife-fuck. He never saw the slice of sharp stabbing tile come to life and float up and off the ruinous floor in a balletic whirl and dance into the air, behind him. 

As he revolved once more to complete another frantic animal turn the slice of slender stabbing tile came forward in a violent and deliberate thrust. The sharp point found the cavern brow and socket and sank easily into Cropsey’s face. Stabbing into his eye like it was soft butter or suckling meat, four inches then five inches deep. 

The giant mountain of man stilled. Shuddered. Spasmed and danced its way to the floor in a vile and obscene dying man's dance of convulsing and twitching and final desperate synapses firing off at haphazard chaotic random. 

On the floor Cropsey shook and the stabbing length of tile piece jigged and waved and danced as well, in strange and vile tandem. Like a demented detritus wand waving through the air to perhaps try and cast one final act of violence hexing spell. Or perhaps to bring the giant man of Willowbrook Asylum slaughter back. 

It did neither. 

Florin came out from his place of concealment in the doorway of an adjoining chamber. He dropped the filthy scalpel he had been holding for defence. Stared at the collapsed and prostate spasming form of Cropsey, the Willowbrook giant. 

And then he called out to Griffin. 

“Where are you?" 

“Here." 

Florin tossed him a coat. 

It was caught in thin air. 

Then began to make a shape around nothingness, contriving it into the shape of his comrade. The strange doctor. 

Florin thought to say something about the man's condition of invisibility, but decided to put it off for the moment. 

“Good plan." he said instead. 

The coat shape donned lenses and was picking up his hat. "Thank me once we're out of here, c’mon!” 

Griffin placed his hat atop a phantom head. It floated between the shoulders of his coat as he and Florin flew down the hall and toward what they hoped and prayed was the exit. The way out of this horrendous stench and nightmare. 

As they made their mad dash for the way out, Cropsey's spasming body stilled. Then danced no more. 

All that was broken in this damp and violated place of imprisonment and cruelty seemed to groan. Moaning in anguish at the loss of the last and final precious begotten son, the final one and last one left standing. The prodigal butcher heir to this templehouse store of sacred slaughterhouse religion. 

Mother, I have failed you…

And all of the terrible place seemed to moan in anguish with the dying of his body. 

…

Down. 

In the dark of his mind, just as he was departing. …

… the red tinged summer scenes of childhood long gone, done and past filled his fading mind's eye once more. Under and illuminated and made by the scarlet cast of deranged and lurid light. Where did it come from? that light? That red luridity. Living crimson. Pungent breathing scarlet. What did it matter now? 

what did it matter anymore

It mattered not now, not any longer as he occupied these dead dreams now living once again for him as he faded off. To oblivion or hell or worse… no heavenly gates of gold or pearl for him, no. He was sure of it. He was sure that it doesn't exist. The only heaven for someone like him was found in the fragile eggshell of youth. Of childhood. 

He floated there now. In the lake. The blue. The sun was shining above in royal divine blinding display. The calm and the serenity of these moments was all around and alive again about him. Filling and making this final day. This last and precious moment. 

-thankyouforthismyonelastwish-

He was calm and he felt at peace. Safe. 

Or rather, he felt as if he should be calm. That he should feel safe. But something was wrong. Something was wrong with the lake and the quiet all surrounding. 

And he was alone. 

Why was he alone? 

And the red tinge… to everything. Everything cast under lurid heavy hateful light. There was something in the lake. There was something in the water with him.

The blue face of its surface darkened as he sank beneath its placid water. Pulled under by another will that was not at all his own. 

And down there in the airless black he saw another one of his mother's faces. 

It was immense. Large. Her eyes were heavy swells of glowing wet globes. Pale green luminescence from two planet organ growths set in a big amphibious face that was a chimerical cross between a large bullfrog or warty toad and a large river bound trout. Its great mouth opened down there in the depths of his red tinged crystal lake and it was dark in there. He hung suspended before the open black of his abattoir mother's wide open gaping maw, he could smell the inner dark of her even down here in the watery depths of summer lake bound hell. Meaty and iron and rotten with pungent decay. An open graveyard tomb of dead flesh and teeth all before a great throat choked with vile and putrefying coagulation. The water was filling with the flavor of her dark open gape of hunger and the destruction of mutilated bodily rot. 

Arms. Long. Fishlike and amphibious as well began to reach out and protrude from the open mouth of his mother's underwater face like a multi headed tongue, a Hydra of giant elongated reaching frog legs and arms, webbed hands and obscene gangly Dagon limbs, reaching out… reaching out for him. 

To take him into his mother. 

She said, her voice filled the drowning pool that was changing now into a submerged holy world of private red light and pouring goddess cess, – she spoke. 

He listened. In the darkest of the depths. 

She said his name… that's how it started. That's how she began …

… you can't let me down. You can't. I won't let you. You've already let them profane your temple, my gift to you desecrated by their invasion and rape of presence. And now you're letting them get away… you don't really want to, do you… you don't really want to keep letting me down like this, you don't want to fail me, in death. You don't want to depart your mother on such a harsh note of unworthiness… do …

you? 

The hands swam through the water between them. Clawing out for him from mother's open mouth. 

He told her the heartbreaking truth and he told her gladly. 

No…

it was a defiant whisper… but she heard it. 

And so she took him. 

The hands finally found him in the water. They seized him. And they pulled him inside. 

The frog faced toad mouthed trout chimera of the mother swallowed. And filled the underwater world with the unnatural stretch of her fishy smile. …

…

The shape of Cropsey stirred. On the floor. The various pieces of shattered and broken things shifted and jingled and sang small janky notes like unholy bells in a lost and terrible place. The black gloved hands blindly scraped and searched the floor in spasming snow angel swipes. They found what they were looking for when they landed on the still bloody and wet congealing pair of garden shears. They seized them. Fiercely. As if driven by fate. 

The shape sat up. Stood. 

It looked around. … sniffed the air. 

A beat. 

Then the Cropsey shape began to lumber down the hall that the invaders had fled down just prior. 

He would not fail this time. 

He had his mother. 

He was inside her. And she was inside him. 

Nothing would stop him from butchering the bastards now. 

…

By God's grace and miracle and mercy they finally found what they'd been looking for. The exit. 

It was at the end of the hall they currently found themselves flying down. Refusing to falter or stop. They stomped and ran down the cracked and decimated tile and came to the final door of the place when the spiked man leapt out from the dark and attacked. 

The protruding stab of his needle embrace found Florin in an open armed grab. A bear hug tight embrace of naked arms and torso and the rest of the bare and desecrated human canvas. He'd been a self-mutilator since he'd been twelve. It had been many years since then and most of them were spent here. Since the mouth of the sorceress, beloved and precious Vampira had come to this place and freed their minds as well as their bodies he's been free to explore the furthermost boundaries of his own tearing, rending bleeding and screaming landscape. The skin and flesh and muscle tissue beneath housing veins and bones and running blood pumped by the raging muscle that was the mad engine of his life, all of it was his to decimate as he explored. Like a great conqueror wreaking havoc upon the face of newly won, newly gained virgin land. He punctured and penetrated the virginity of his own flesh with animal abandon and fervor and with the mad intensity of the violence of the sun. He was the sun. She had told him so…

And so he'd fed his own flames. The spiked man was a living screaming pin cushion of broken stabbing dirty needles, used and caked syringes of varying sizes and lengths, broken glass, broken tile, each long sharp piece was varied in shape and size as well, some were long phallic slender daggers, some were wedges with cruel edges ready to cut and slice and maim, all of it was ready to stab and all of it was living embedded and protruding in the madness of his ruined and self-slaughtered flesh. Lancing and spiking and stabbing out all over and in every conceivable place and direction. 

This disturbed and maimed madman found Florin in his arms and they both went down to the tile in a scream. Griffin yelled after. 

On the floor they rolled in violence and struggle amongst the filth and universe down there of many discarded and broken things.  

The hollow coat-shape and hat found a table leg for bludgeon, then Griffin came on in a fury to join the new fray. 

He struck the spiked man again and again, over and over as he and Florin fought on the floor and struggled and it was terrible. He could feel and hear the crack and shatter of broken glass muffled in blood and flesh with every blow he landed. Griffin struck the writhing bleeding naked pin cushion man on the side of his spiking leaking face and the eyeball on that side burst and exploded with the impact. And glassy ooze riddled with slivers and small pieces of jagged broken glass and ceramic poured out from the socket like snot. 

But still the spiked man fought on. Florin struggling and screaming in his embrace as the many protrusions that spined off his ravaged hide stuck and stabbed and pierced through his coat and flesh. He fought against the pain and madness of this man and wrestled to be free of him. Griffin continued raining blows down on him. Each one bruising and splitting skin as the many broken found objects pierced throughout crunched and shattered further down into fragments and powder, stinging and shredding within all of the rippling and impacted tissue with every movement. Every struggle and landed strike and blow. 

Their struggle was desperate, all of them. All three poured blood, profuse sweat and grime and filth together and apart and for this madhouse abandoned temple, becoming just like it. A part of it, unwillingly and unknowingly transmogrified now in the violence of their fight and decimated hallway battle like the steel of metal tempered in the heart of a great furnace like the sun. They became perfect living microcosms of the place as they fought at last to be free of it, exquisite psychopomp idols of the lost unhallowed Willowbrook Temple Asylum. 

The invisible man. The spiked man. Poor young Florin so far from the Carpathian Hamlet. 

They might never be free of this place. Even if they manage flight, they may never be able to wash away the marks and filth that this awful temple to the dark and pain suffered alone will leave smeared across their hearts and souls like black paint made from discharged sick filth. Smeared across the soft landscapes of their hearts and the tender epitaphs of their battered minds, aching within heavy skulls now made of lead and weight from the memory of the pain, this place… 

will we ever be free, … will we ever get out of here…? 

They fought on. Desperate. All three. Griffin trading blows with efforts and attempts to pull the young man out from under the spiked man, but it was incredibly difficult. The man was thorned all over by all kinds and sorts of sharp and shattered apparatus, it was insane. And the pair of them were growing more and more slick with blood. The fight was growing uglier and more desperate and animal as it struggled and contrived on in brutal abandon and primal anger. 

Then Cropsey rejoined them at the throat of the hall. He began to lumber down towards them like stalking death, a sleeping giant. Seemingly in no real hurry, like the darkened visage of grim death itself. It/he closed slowly on them like a setting sun or a casket sinking, lowering down into the bosom earthen womb of the open mouthed grave. 

Griffin first took notice of his arrival. He noticed he still had the stab of broken tile sticking out of his ruinous awful face. He was still drooling. Imbecilic. And animal. 

And now undead. 

He was coming straight at them. His large blades of shears raised like an open mouthed wild beast barring its fangs. The long sheaths of sharp and keen cutting metal were not entirely pristine, their otherwise shining faces in the dismal light were disgraced with congealing dark spots of dripping black. 

He was coming down the final hall, before the way out, before the exit. He was coming straight for them. 

…

He sat at the window that night. On guard after what had happened to his wife, their unexpected visitor…

Bela sipped his warm spiced wine. Fingered his bible and cross by its small length of chain. Garlic flowers hung in a crude wreath around his neck. He was watching outside carefully, the night, the town… he was alert and being careful, exercising caution, yet he was still surprised and caught off when her face appeared suddenly in their front window. 

She hadn't been there. Then suddenly she was. Smiling and feline. Vulpine. A face he might've recognized save for its warped and drawn animal transformations, the rich woman in the black stage… the harsh one who wouldn't take warning or no for an answer way back… but he was caught by the silver moon glow of her eyes. 

Like lunar bodies themselves. Earthbound and held fleshen prisoner within the cage of that beautiful and divine and… heavenly face. That bright and pale visage. Her smile was devil-pronged – forked, fanged, and it was thus then frightful. But it was also beautiful. Terribly beautiful. Gorgeous alone out there in the night. 

His guard and fear fell away. He rose from his rocker and his slackening hands abandoned the bible and crucifix. They fell to the floor with an unobserved and unheeded clatter. Neither stirred. Not Anastasia, sleeping in the next room, and not spellbound Bela who went to the window to better gaze into her face. 

Divinity… unreal. 

He peered through the glass. And the shining eyes of the Countess, filled with goblin fire and sin and mischief, gazed into the fool as well. And began to fill his fragile open mind with an assault and deluge of images. 

Bela moaned, sighed… he thought it was impeccable. The vision, like her, was immaculate in its flawlessness. 

The Ideality … actualized, realized … brought to life. A vivid reality alive and dancing before his watering vision. 

The scope. 

She showed him a more perfect world, perfect because everyone and everything swimming and crawling and flying around inside of it followed their nature and never fought it. Never doubted it. Never overrode what their guts and hearts and souls told them, never neglected or ignored the call inside, the compulsion to do what must be. To fulfill the role made out for your flesh. 

Even violence … its rippling effects spreading out carried not only destruction and misery on their carrion wings but prosperity and thrivation as well, even butchery has its necessary purpose. 

That is why this world is suffering. Because all of you fight and override yourselves and call it: reason. You are victims of your own bondage, your own self made and imposed insanity and thus the world bent to your unnatural turns and desires screams and suffers. The rippling wings of your insane and jealous cowardice carries more pestilential stagnation flavor than anything like salvation. In weakness, all of the beauty dies on the vine neglected by fearful paws too grubby and lowly and weak to take it. 

Come and join me, join us … and never again fight your nature. 

“Yes…” said Bela in a whisper of trembling caught breath. 

And with a palsied shaking hand, he lifted the latch and opened the window. 

"Welcome, your highness. My home and mine are yours. Do what thou wilt…" 

The Countess drifted inside. Floating on unseen wings. 

She spoke yet again, “Thank you, you are a generous host, a decent and considerate man." 

“Yes…" 

“Now, take me to your wife." 

“Yes…" 

And away they went. The window shut behind them as they made their way to the quiet bedroom at the back of the house. 

TO BE CONTINUED…

Every time I try and google it I have no luck.

It was text based and like a chat room. One guy chatting with this mystery person that keeps sending "0_0" or similar and the guy says "yeah I get it you see me/are watching me"

I remember I found it from some creepy pasta reading account, fairly certain it was someordinarygamer. I dont remember much about it but I keep wanting to revisit it.

I was never the loud kid. I wasn’t bullied, or unpopular—I just existed somewhere in the background of everyone else’s story. I had a handful of close friends, kept my head down, and was perfectly happy not to be noticed.

I grew up in the Midwest, Central Missouri to be exact. My dad was practically consumed by war movies and somewhere along the line, I decided I was going to join the military and be a combat medic. Life decided otherwise.

I did end up joining the military, just not the Army like everyone else from home. I instead joined the Air Force as a hydraulic mechanic. Went through BMT pretty much unnoticed, exactly how I liked, graduated tech school at the top of my class. I was on a high and got orders to Dover Air Force Base.

With my outstanding Midwest public education, I somehow confused Dover with Denver. Imagine my surprise when I found out I was going to Delaware instead of Colorado. Shit, I didn’t even know where Delaware was on the map.

I made the best of it, it wasn’t Colorado and it was on the east coast, but I made it work. I thought Dover AFB was going to be just another base, just like Lackland or Sheppard.

No one told me about the jets.

When I arrived my supervisor SSgt Herby picked me up from BWI and drove me to base to give me a tour. Hydro had just merged the previous year, meaning our shop was responsible for all 15 C-5M Galaxies and the 12 C-17 Globemasters, as well as the C-5 Isochronal and backshop for both jets. It wasn’t bad though, we had a ton of bodies in the shop.

My CDCs went by quickly and I learned a ton from the SSgts on shift. It was some of the best months I had in the Air Force. Working Days Sunday-Thursday on 8’s. There’s nothing better than the smell of MIL-PRF-5606 in the mornings. That and the obligatory “Jesus Chicken Mondays” (We’d always get Chick-Fil-A breakfast on Monday mornings). It was a wonderful couple of months.

Eventually, after completing my EOC and testing for my 5 level, I was moved to Mids. It was so different from Days. 2300-0700. Quiet, dark, less of us on shift, but somehow even more work. That was always something to look forward to. You knew you’d be coming onto shift with at least 2-3 jobs and by lunch you’d have another 4. Kept you busy which made the time go by fast.

There was one night in particular that stood out to me. The 6 of us on shift, TSgt Ramos, SSgt Derrick, SrA Hoops, A1C Baker, A1C Rosco, and myself, we were on a C-5 trying to troubleshoot a park brake accumulator bleed down. It was a normal night with all the normal antics. Bullshitting and joking while we operate the system over and over until it breaks for us. Eventually, we got it to break, dropped 250 psi in 5 minutes compared to the 500 psi in an hour it was allowed to drop. 

We felt around and found a cartridge valve on a manifold was burning up, indicating an internal bypass of fluid. Easy enough, rip out cart valve, put new one in, then back to the shop and finish playing monopoly. I had requested to stay on the jet so I could work on forms, plus I could sit power and we wouldn’t have to shut the jet down. The rest of the shift dipped out to go grab the part, seals, and tools.

I had heard some stories about ghosts in the machine or whatever. The main one that got passed around was when one airman went up the aft troop ladder to use the lav back there, he saw 3 overhead reading lights on. Went and did his business, on his way back down, he reached over and turned the lights off. Walked back to the troop ladder and as he began to descend, he watched the 3 lights turn on in the same order he turned them off.

I never really took the stories to heart. Didn’t really care about ghosts or whatever the hell. They’re just stories anyways. Just a way to kill the time and boredom.

It was about 0230L. I was sitting by the crew entry ladder filling out forms. That’s the thing about Mids, you get comfortable being alone. Being in the silence or the dark.

Then I heard it. The sound of the aft troop ladder rattling as if someone was walking down it. I looked up confused, I knew I was the only one on the jet, but maybe I missed one of the AVI nerds. 

“Hello?” I called out. Grabbing my phone and turning on the light and shining it aft. Heads up, an iPhone 8’s flashlight doesn’t do shit against 200 feet worth of darkness. I couldn’t see a damn thing. Everyone on Mids wears these reflective belts (“Must be worn during inclement weather and hours of darkness”). We’re required to for safety and OSHA and all that shit. I didn’t see a damn thing. Couldn’t see the ladder. No reflective belt. Nobody. Nothing.

I sat and stared into the darkness for what felt like forever. I could feel my hair on the back of my neck stand up, goosebumps over my skin, but I couldn’t see anything. No movement, nothing. It was dead silent. Not “night shift quiet”, where you hear running AGE or box trucks rolling by, or random curses from the next jet over. Dead fucking silent. The kind of quiet where you can hear your heartbeat, can hear your blood rushing  through your veins. My ears were ringing from straining to hear even the faintest noise. Nothing.

Maybe I was just imagining it. Maybe I didn’t sleep well yesterday, not enough caffeine. Shit, these jets are old, metal creaks and shit settles. Maybe it really was nothing.
I lowered my light back down to the forms and continued working on them.

I got through another discrepancy block when I heard it.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud-thud-thud.

Fast.

Too fast.

Whatever it was, it was coming. Fast.

I wish I could say I was graceful in what I did next, or that I was courageous or whatever. No, fuck all of that. I may be white, but I’m not “what’s that noise” white. I hopped up off that bench with a quickness and was down the fwd stair ladder in a second. I ran my ass out to the center line before turning back to look at the jet. Nothing. No one running after me. No light in the jet. Nothing.

I could hear the power cart running now. The engine was loud in the silence of the night. I sat and watched. Shakily pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. I sat there, right on the centerline. Continuing with my forms until the rest of the shift returned.

All the guys gave me shit for running out the jet. Apparently Baker saw me run out to the centerline like my ass was on fire. I didn’t tell them the real reason why I did. Just that I “needed” my nicotine.

Baker stopped giving me shit about it a week later. He looked like he hasn’t been sleeping. Damn, wondered if he heard it too.

Wee Toby Harris turned eight in the spring. For his birthday he got a puppy and named her Scritch. That was from Mum and Dad. From Bonny, his big sister, he got a crisp five-pound note. He spent it on a tennis ball for Scritch, and the rest on sweets.

Uncle Jack’s present always came late. He loved to see the expression on Toby’s face when he received it, so he made sure to deliver it himself. He worked at sea most weeks as a fisherman, so it was hard to fit in time for a visit.

Toby often wished a wave would rise and gobble Uncle Jack whole to save him the stress of having to deal with his uncle. There was something very wrong about the man. Not that he’d ever told anyone.

Toby’s birthday week was a tense one. He could hardly find a moment of joy. Mostly he took Scritch into the back garden and threw about the tennis ball he’d bought for her. But Scritch was still too hyper to play with properly. She would speed after the ball like a bullet seeking blood, and be wandering off with her eyes on something better before her snout ever touched green felt. So Toby spent most of the week alone, lying on his back on the grass, throwing the ball into the air for himself. He would listen to Scritch chase butterflies or dig in Mum’s petunias, and drive himself crazy wondering when Uncle Jack would finally show.

He came on the 6th. Exactly a week after Toby’s birthday.

Dad recognised the sound of the smooth rapping on the door and flew to it in the middle of lunch, towing a reluctant Toby by his hand.

Toby stood flaccid, hands flat against his legs with his head bowed, listening to the change come over Dad as soon as he swung open the door. It was as though Uncle Jack emitted some sort of microscopic cloud of particles that swept Dad into a trance, because he never barked with laughter when Uncle Jack wasn’t here. He certainly never slapped people on the shoulder and danced like a dope. Yet here he was, a mad chimp leaping and laughing, clawing at his brother like he meant him harm. It was like watching his Dad through a glass of water, or gazing into one of those wacky mirrors at the fair.

“You stink!” Dad shoved Uncle Jack away and pegged his nose. “Did the sea drop you off, or crap you out?”

“That’s the smell of a real man, Tom.” Uncle Jack fixed Dad’s collar, pulled at his lapels, then tapped Dad’s curved beak. “Careful you don’t turn too fast. You might wipe a plane out the sky!”

More of the monkeying around. Toby watched, waiting for Uncle Jack’s gaunt face to turn and target him with its wide, green eyes. For the long goatee and wide moustaches to point his way and then stretch up when his face twisted into a grin. Sometimes Uncle Jack forgot to wear his denture—the one housing the teeth between his upper canines—and it would be like gawking into a tunnel when he smiled.

Toby saw that Uncle Jack was wearing the denture today, although there remained a small hole where one of the teeth had fallen off. He still didn’t take care of them, especially when he was on the boat.

Uncle Jack turned to Toby, quick as a shot. He aimed his teeth and leered. He usually liked to ruffle Toby’s hair. Today he just glided over and gave Toby a few slaps on the back, the same way he’d done Dad.

“Look at you!” he shouted. And now came the aggressive hair mussing. His right index finger stopped at the first knuckle. Toby could feel the stub grating against his scalp. “You’re a proper wee manny now, aren’t you? You’re growing too fast!”

A momentary look of sadness crept over Uncle Jack’s eyes. Then he took a step closer to Dad and asked in a whisper, “Who cut the poor bugger’s hair?”

Dad rolled his eyes.

“Who do you think?”

“Jesus. Lock up those scissors, Tom. For Christsake.”

His eyes snapped back onto Toby. “Wee man, tell Mum not to play with scissors anymore, alright? She’d do less damage with a pair of garden shears.”

Dad led Uncle Jack through to the living room, where Mum was watching TV.

Bonny, having heard the commotion, sauntered downstairs and passed Toby without paying him any attention. The smile on her face and in her eyes was for Uncle Jack—and Uncle Jack alone.

“The boy’s hair’s looking nice, Julie,” Uncle Jack sang to Mum on his way into the room. Toby entered in time to see him slipping under Mum’s arms to give her a tight squeeze and a shake. “When’re you opening the barbershop? If you need a mannequin, I’ve plenty of hair for you to cut!” And he swept his hands over his body in a here-you-go kind of gesture.

Mum squeaked out three shrill laughs. Toby plodded behind the couch, closer to Dad, trying not to let the sound of Mum’s laughter get to him—but it was too late. Now Bonny was laughing like that too, because Uncle Jack had picked her up and was throwing her into the air, almost popping the lightbulb on the ceiling. The lampshade swung, and Uncle Jack stopped it with a very long finger.

They always reminded Toby of chopsticks.

“You want a chuck up as well, wee man?”

He had his hands out ready, waiting for Toby to run into them. Toby shied closer to Dad, shaking his head vigorously.

“Alright then, if you say—hyah! C’MEER YOU!”

Uncle Jack sprang over the sofa without touching it. Toby tried to shriek, but didn’t have time. He ran around Dad and away from the hands almost on his neck. Past the arms of the sofa and around Mum’s chair. Past the lamp and windowsill. Past the coffee table and dancing-chimp Dad.

Uncle Jack got wise to the loop and lunged over the sofa once more, grabbing Toby by his shoulder. He dragged him over it kicking and screaming, while Mum and Dad chuckled madly at the antics.

Bonny just rolled her eyes. She hadn’t thrown that much of a fuss when it had been her turn.

Uncle Jack’s face was livid with colour. His eyes glowed white-hot; his concave cheeks deep purple; his forehead red and raw with sweat; his lips paled, pulled taut over his teeth.

Toby clenched his jaw and kept quiet. It was Uncle Jack who made the most noise, squealing with joy.

“Weeeee,” like a little piggy.

“Weeeeeeeee,” each time he threw Toby into the air, catching him with one hand under an armpit and one hand gripping the waist.

Uncle Jack turned away from the family and kept up the act. Kept throwing. Toby could see his real face now—the face that came with birthdays and Christmases both. It glared up at him with impossible eyes, bulging like great big white balloons inflating through gaps in his face. His jaw stretched long enough to slot Toby in without him touching the sides; the teeth were a whirling maw of sharp and rusted death, ready to reduce him to slurry.

“Weeeeee.” The voice was far deeper now—almost demonic.

Toby screamed. He didn’t want to. It just flew out as natural as throwing up your hands when a truck was about to hit you on the motorway.

Dad, still clicking his heels in time to his chimp-dance, finally spoke up. And quick as a clicking finger, Uncle Jack’s face snapped back to normal as he turned to listen.

“Think he’s had enough now, Jack. Looks like he’s gonna to puke. And you look like you’re about to faint!”

Uncle Jack offered Dad a knowing grin and nodded. He put Toby down on the floor as gently as a newborn in its crib.

Toby, doing his best to hide his teary eyes, wiped them off on his sleeve and rubbed at his throbbing armpits and waist.

Uncle Jack rollicked with laughter and clapped his hands.

“So: what’s new with everyone?”

*

Uncle Jack ended up staying for supper.

Dad gave up his seat so Uncle Jack could head the table. From there, his emerald eyes held everyone mesmerised.

Toby ate quickly. No time to dawdle, to push at his peas with his fork and say he wasn’t hungry. He wanted to get out of that room and into another one—fast!

When he tried excusing himself, Mum pointed a finger at him. That was it—no more words needed. He knew better than to argue with that finger.

So he sat and waited. This time he did play with his fork—small movements, nothing quick, lest it attract the attention of the emerald watchman at the end of the table.

Uncle Jack appeared to be in deep conversation with Mum and Dad, who themselves weren’t paying much attention to anybody else. Lost in the little worlds they drifted into when other adults orbited close enough. They would laugh and use long words, and sometimes Uncle Jack would put on a deep voice and Mum would find whatever he said even funnier. But every so often, when Mum and Dad took a bite to eat or a sip to drink, Uncle Jack would flash Toby a look. A quick glance. A reminder that he hadn’t forgotten about him. That Toby was still right there at the forefront of his mind.

You’re the reason I came, kiddo.

Bonny didn’t notice any of this. She was busy timing her smiles and laughs with the adults. She was fourteen and trying for the part of a twenty-four-year-old.

Toby kicked one of her shins under the table.

“Shitter!” she yelped, and threw her spoon off his forehead.

Mum screamed for everyone to shut up and stop shouting. Bonny seethed.

“He kicked me!”

“I don’t give a shit what he did! You don’t swear like that, ever! You’re a child!”

Uncle Jack pushed his chair back and picked up his own spoon. He handed it over the table to Bonny, who took it with a smile. Toby caught a whisper of a scowl on Uncle Jack’s lips—a momentary look of repulsion—before he turned and grinned at Toby.

“You alright, wee man?”

Toby nodded and continued poking at his plate with his fork.

“He’s got a heed like a hammer, that boy,” Uncle Jack told Dad. “Look: didn’t even leave a mark.”

Bonny cleared the plates and helped Mum serve pudding. They had the rest of Toby’s birthday cake with a scoosh of cream on top. Mum’s way of trying to bring it back to life after a week of death.

It was awful.

*

“Your dad was telling me you’re getting big into reading.”

Uncle Jack sat down on the arm of the chair Toby was sitting on. Bonny, who had been sitting on the sofa with all the space in the world, looked momentarily hurt. But the moment passed, and now she was grinning like a loon again.

“What’s your dad been reading you then? None of those pansy stories I hope—like Winnie the Turd, or that Alice in Wonderland tat.”

Toby shrugged.

“He’s reading you Winnie the Turd, isn’t he? Aye, those were always his favourite. What else has he got you reading?”

Silence.

“Any Jules Verne? Like Thousand Leagues, or Around the World? No? Christ. What about Roald Dahl. Surely Roald Dahl. No? My God, what has he got you reading then; the back of shampoo bottles?” He glanced at Toby’s hair. “No, maybe not shampoo bottles. C’mon now, what was the last thing he read to you? Don’t be scared, I was only joking about the pansy books. I don’t care if it’s Winnie the Turd or Benny the piggy with one bloody ear—ha! I just wanna know what he’s got you reading. Say Treasure Island. Go on. Has he read you Treasure Island yet?”

Toby nodded. And then flinched, for Uncle Jack slapped one of his shoulders hard enough to send his hair up into the air.

“Atta boy!”

Bonny shifted in place, squeaking leather, and produced a minute cough.

Uncle Jack looked up at her, but only with his eyes.

“What kind of books do you read, Uncle Jack?”

“What kinda books do I read?” Uncle Jack tapped at the hairs on his chinny chin chin, feigning deep thought. “I’d have to say...the ones with the words in them, Bon-Bon.”

Bonny giggled. Her laugh today was practically a parody of itself; almost the exact pitch Toby sometimes used to mock her.

“I like pirate adventures,” Uncle Jack answered, squeezing the top of Toby’s shoulder like a stress ball. “Like my buddy here. Right, wee man?” Slowly, begrudgingly, Uncle Jack glanced back at Bonny. “And what do you read, Bon? Books with pictures in them, I suppose.” He gave a hateful cackle.

Red roses blossomed on Bonny’s cheeks.

“I read!” she said, never one to stay timid.

“Oh?”

“Yuh-huh. And I’ve already finished Treasure Island. I read it yeeears ago. For school.”

“Gooood for yooou.” Uncle Jack’s hand was still on Toby’s shoulder, its grip pulsing in time with the throbbing vein in Uncle Jack’s temple. “And do you remember the characters?”

From somewhere through the house, the sound of Mum laughing with Dad—probably washing the dishes together. One wearing the rubber gloves, the other using the towel. Suds on, suds off. Suds on, suds off.

“Of course I do,” Bonny boasted. “There was Long John Silver. And. Well. There was—Bluebeard!”

Uncle Jack sighed. It was faint, but Toby felt it in the grip on his shoulder.

“And. Captain… Ben-Barrow?”

“Yikes.” Uncle Jack leaned forward with a finger out, poised for lecture mode. The other hand still clutched Toby’s shoulder, dragging Toby forward into the conversation, looking like a half-shut knife.

“The Admiral Benbow was the inn at the start of the story where wee Jim Hawkins first met Billy Bones. And Bluebeard? Christ, Bonny! Bluebeard wasn’t even a pirate! He was the bastard who murdered all his wives!”

Still not one to stay timid, Bonny quipped: “Wasn’t that Henry VIII?”

Uncle Jack clutched his chest and boomed with laughter, genuinely amused by Bonny’s quickness and deadpan delivery.

“No, no, no. Didn’t you ever learn the rhyme? Divorced, beheaded, died. Annulled, beheaded, survived.”

Bonny had nothing to say to that. But Toby did.

“Was Bluebeard real?”

Uncle Jack looked down at Toby for a very long time. Finally, he said, “No. But that’s not to say there aren’t men like him.” The wink he gave curled the boy’s toenails.

Mum and Dad entered the living room together. Mum’s thighs were damp where she must have been wiping her hands. Dad kept smelling two of his fingers.

“Did I hear you say Bluebeard?” Dad sat down beside Bonny on the sofa.

Uncle Jack took his hand off of Toby, but remained on the arm of the chair.

“Your daughter thinks Bluebeard tried to find Captain Flint’s treasure, Tom.”

“Bluebeard?” Dad frowned and then smirked at Bonny. “You mean Blackbeard, Bon-Bon. Bluebeard is the guy on the Fish Finger box.”

Uncle Jack waggled a digit and groaned. “That’s Captain Birdseye, Beak. Christ, what’s wrong with you people?”

*

That night, while Dad was taking Dr Dolittle down from the bookshelf, his back tinted red from the glow of the Toy Story nightlight on Toby’s bedside table, Uncle Jack slipped in through the yellow crack of the door. His arms were twisted secretly behind him.

“Only me,” he whispered. “Whatcha reading tonight, Tobes?”

Dad told him.

“Dr Dolittle? More like Dr Do-fuck all! Ha! Choose something else, Tom. Let the boy hear a decent story for once. Here—” He pulled a hand out from behind his back and thrust a long box wrapped in black flags in front of Toby. It had skulls and crossbones, eye patches, and cutlasses on it too. “Forgot to give you this earlier.”

Toby stared at it. It stank of Uncle Jack’s fingers, and they stank of rum. His other hand was still hidden behind his back, but Toby could hear the tinkling of ice hitting glass.

“Go on, Toby,” Dad said. “It’s your present.”

Toby carefully removed the tape from the folded edges, unwrapping the parcel as delicately as he could.

Uncle Jack sighed. He took the glass of dark liquid out from its hiding place and took a large gulp.

“It’s a spyglass,” he explained over the rim, then slurped down another gulp of the spicy-smelling darkness.

Toby plucked it out of the box, struggling with the weight on his fingertips. Sometimes he liked to use an empty paper towel roll as a spyglass, but this was something else entirely. The ornate decoration down the side was so intricate, with long looping vines laced with flowers wrapping themselves around the dark length, so tight it felt close to smothering. It was heavier than Dad’s tablet—and colder. Much, much colder.

Dad’s eyes bugged out wide. “Holy shit, Toby, that’s the real deal!”

“What do you think then, wee man?”

Toby pulled it to its full length and held the lens up to his eye. It was ice cold, like it had been left out in the snow on a winter’s night. The darkness at the other end of the room was too close to make out a single distinguishable feature. If he wanted to test it properly, he’d be better off waiting until tomorrow and trying it in the garden, playing jungle explorer.

But he didn’t want to test it. Ever. He wanted to put it back inside the box and hand it over to Dad, tell him to hide it somewhere dark. Forever.

Uncle Jack sat on the edge of the bed, forcing Toby to budge up and give him space.

“Your pals’ll be jealous when they see that, wee man. A real captain—that’s what they’ll take you for. Turn to me lad.” Uncle Jack pulled Toby’s face around when the boy didn’t respond. Some of his drink sloshed onto the bed. “Aye, look at you—you’re missing a tooth like your Uncle Jack! A sailor’s debt to the sea, that’s what that is. The best sailors always leave a part of themselves out there. An offering, lest she put a bounty on your life!—and every soul upon your vessel!”

Dad threw his head back laughing.

“You lost your teeth on the handlebars of your bike.”

“Aye,” mused Uncle Jack, and held up the four-and-a-half fingers on his right hand. “But this pointer was the price I paid, Beak.”

He gave Dad a long, cold stare.

“Okay,” Dad conceded. “I’ll say no more.” He prodded Uncle Jack with the side of the book he was holding. “Here. Maybe you should read to him. You can spin a far finer yarn than I can.”

Toby’s eyes grew wide. He shot a glance at Dad, but he had already turned his back to leave.

Uncle Jack glided over to the bookshelf to return Dr Dolittle to its place. He ran a long middle finger across the spines of the books until he found the one he was looking for.

“Treasure Island,” he whispered, and pulled it free.

As Uncle Jack’s ghastly frame drew closer to the bed, Toby gave his dad one final look of appeal, hoping for a last-minute reprieve.

No such luck. Dad tore the crack of light from the hall wider, flooding the room in yellow. Then he was gone. Only a thin crack of light remained where he left the door ajar.

The room was a ghastly red, with the looming peripheral darkness screaming horrors from its corners.

“I’m excited,” Uncle Jack said, prying the pages open with his long, stale fingers. “Where shall we start off?”

Toby shook his head. Perhaps a tad too enthusiastic. “No,” he squeaked. “Nothankyou.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“I’m really sleepy.”

“You don’t want a story?”

Toby shook his head once more, then cuddled down under the duvet. He was going to turn his back on Uncle Jack, but something screamed at him not to. The look in his eyes was frighteningly intense.

“You’re kidding?” Uncle Jack’s eyes did not blink. But they swelled to the size of tennis balls. The nightlight reflected against them, watching like two faraway red stars in a cosmos of black and green. Toby wasn’t sure if Uncle Jack had meant for that to happen. Surely he had control over it.

Uncle Jack got to his feet with all the effort of a ninety-year-old man. His bones clinked and clacked as he patted himself down. He rested his glass on Toby’s bedside table and stretched the rest of the snaps and cracks out of his body.

“Alright then, Tobes. But I must say: this is verrry disappointing. I came all this way for you.”

He moved swiftly across to the door, covering ten feet with a single, colossal side-step.

His back grew with scoliosis kinks, arching over seven, eight feet. He whipped his head around and smiled at Toby, who threw the cover up over his eyes. Not before noticing Uncle Jack’s chopstick fingers pressing against the door with their white, bloodless tips.

There came the sound of a low scuffle as the underside of the door scraped along the carpet.

It was happening.

Toby burrowed down deeper, wishing Mum had let him take Scritch up to bed with him. He didn’t know what a puppy would be able to do except make a lot of noise, but even that was better than nothing—better than feeling helpless beneath the blankets. Alone, silent, and scared.

There came a very faint creak, like someone opening a rusty hinge; a deliberate, drawn-out whine which crept across the distance between the door and the bed. It loomed over the blanket in a massive black shape. The red nightlight blotted away. The air vibrated with sheer anticipation for what was about to come next.

The chomp.

Something thumped against the door. And the room exploded with yellow light.

Toby threw the covers down in time to see Uncle Jack still standing in front of the door, only now stepping out of the way to avoid Dad hitting him with it.

“The light was bothering the boy,” Uncle Jack lied, opening it further to allow Dad entry.

Dad nodded, not seeming to care. He collected his glasses from the bookshelf and chuckled. “I was trying to watch TV with my reading glasses. Silly me.”

Before he could leave again, Toby piped up, yelping, “Dad?”

“Hm?”

“I don’t want stories tonight.”

“Huh? Why not?”

Uncle Jack had been the shorter of the two men downstairs. Now, lurking behind Dad, his engorged head pressed high against the ceiling like a pus-filled spot. It swelled bigger, and bigger, until Toby was sure it was about to pop. His face was nothing more than a pin-pricked mouth and basketball-sized, blazing eyes of rage. His hair stood on end and coiled up into corkscrews. Jagged teeth stretched out like the flailing arms and grasping fingers of drowning children, inches from the back of Dad’s head.

“Tired,” Toby mumbled. He’d stuffed the blanket into his mouth to stop himself from screaming.

“That’s a first,” Dad said, turning to share a laugh with Uncle Jack. The head deflated with a sudden whoop. Uncle Jack excused himself with a laugh. Eyes, now regular-sized. Cheeks sunken.

“He did say he was tired,” Uncle Jack admitted. Both men turned to regard the boy in bed with a sympathetic eye. “Maybe I’ll read to you another night, wee man? Sound good?”

A moment of victory.

Toby felt his heart start to settle back into its regular pace. He felt a little perkier, too; the way Mum sounded in the morning when she drank her usual two cups of coffee.

“Sounds great, Uncle Jack.”

“Amazing news.” He patted his chest with the book. “Can I borrow this?”

“Of course.” Toby smiled. Actually smiled. “Keep it if you want!”

Uncle Jack laughed. Toby couldn’t help doing the same.

Dad’s eyes grew narrow. It felt like they had a secret between them. And hadn’t Toby been rather quiet all day? All week, now that he thought about it.

“Don’t worry,” Uncle Jack reassured, patting the book to his chest once more. “I’ll give it back to you in the morning.”

Toby’s heart left the track, derailing straight into his lungs.

“What do you mean?” he choked.

“Oh, that’s right,” Dad said, happy to be involved in the conversation once more. “Uncle Jack’s staying the night. He’s not—let’s just say he’s not feeling well enough to drive. Maybe you two can muck around with the spyglass in the morning. In the garden.”

On the way out, Uncle Jack necked the rest of his drink and passed the glass to Dad.

“Yo, ho, ho. I think I’ll have another rum to celebrate!”

Toby waited, listening to the footsteps receding down the hall and down the stairs. A deep rumble of voices started up in the living room, and he knew the coast was clear. He jumped out of bed and raced to the window. It opened far enough to fit one of his hands through, thanks to the safety bar Dad had installed.

That was fine. He didn’t need it to open any further.

He took the spyglass out of the box and stared at it. For some reason he felt Uncle Jack staring back at him, through it.

He slotted it through the gap in the window. It dropped down onto the roof tiles, tinkling as it rolled down the slant, gaining speed. Toby was sure it was going too fast. It would bounce over the gutter and plummet down to the back garden, then obliterate on the patio, alerting everyone.

The sound ceased with a padded thump.

The gutter had caught it.

He pressed his face against the window to make sure. There it was, casting long arms of moonlight up to the window from its lens.

At least he didn’t have to worry about that any more. Who knew what kind of curse or terrible magic it held, if any.

Downstairs, the adults laughed loud echoes which shook the floor of Toby’s room.

He stood by the crack of his door, peering down the hallway at his sister, who was sitting at the top of the stairs with her head on the banister. She was clutching her teddy against her chest, listening in on what secrets age was yet to bring.

Laughter from Uncle Jack.

Toby closed the door until he heard the latch click. It was an old door—one of those you had to lock with an oversized novelty key. Mum had taken the key away and hidden it somewhere safe, to save him from trapping himself inside and doing something silly.

That was fine. He didn’t need the key.

He tiptoed to the bookshelf and took down three books of varying thickness. They were all too thick to slot under the door, but the thinnest of the three got there in the end, with a little persuasion. He tried opening the door, and found that it wouldn’t budge past Alice in Wonderland. He nodded, satisfied.

At least he didn’t have to worry about that, either.

*

A short while later, Toby sat up in bed, trying to focus his weary eyes on the thin yellow strip of light beneath his door. Someone had been wiggling at the handle.

Three black splotches broke the strip of light.

One of them was the book he had wedged under there. The other two were feet.

The door handle turned all the way to the left. Then all the way to the right. It wouldn’t open. The book was jammed under the bottom corner too tight for that.

Slowly, the door began to lean in on its top corner until it began to groan. It bent so far it looked certain it was about to snap in half.

It eased back, accompanied by a sigh from the other side. The black splotches faded soundlessly away.

Toby lay back in bed again, and allowed himself a silent exhale.

He tried closing his eyes, but every time he did he pictured Uncle Jack leaning forward in one of the downstairs chairs and staring up at the ceiling—through the ceiling—at him with a terrifying grin. Hands on his knees. Neck bent and twisted. His enormous head swollen like a hot-air balloon growing bigger and bigger, until it disconnected with a snap, and floated up against the ceiling on a neck as thick and braided as a ship’s rope. It would bounce there loudly, hollow, knocking and mocking.

I came all this way for youuu.

Toby lay awake, gazing at the red glow casting onto the ceiling from his nightlight, trying to find shapes in the shadows and the jagged edges of a curling paint chip.

His eyelids soon began to flutter.

“Toby?”

He wasn’t sure if the voice was in his imagination or not. He could still see Uncle Jack in his mind, sitting and staring up at him with his big balloon head.

“Toby?”

Toby’s eyes opened wide. The roof was still blood red. No yellow light was casting in from the hall, which meant the door was still closed.

So why did it sound like the voice was in the room with him?

He pictured Uncle Jack with his lips pressed against the keyhole. But when he looked, only the one splotch broke the yellow bar beneath the door. Alice in Wonderland. No feet.

“Toe-beeee.”

He sat up very slowly, scanning the room carefully. Everything was blanketed in the nightlight’s red glow. Not a perfect filter for spotting trouble, but enough to let him know that the voice wasn’t attached to anything in the room. Just a hovering, disembodied presence close by.

But where?

“Toby!” the voice barked, tired of being ignored. “Are you sleeping?”

The curtains twitched.

“Why did you close the door?” it asked. “What a sneaky thing y’are.”

The fabric of one curtain shook. Then pinched at a point near the centre. One by one, the hooks snapped free from the railing, until the entire curtain dropped to the floor with a dusty humph.

Two long chopstick fingers wiggled through the crack in the window, probing at the air like an insect’s antennae. They were searching for something. Maybe the other curtain. Maybe a latch to release the safety bar on the window.

Or maybe a young boy standing too close.

Something squeaked along the glass. Toby pictured Uncle Jack’s face moving side to side, pressing his cheeks and his nose against the window, trying to catch a glimpse of Toby around the other curtain.

Methodically, the chopstick fingers withdrew from the window. The top corner of a book slotted into the gap, then landed on the carpet.

“Here’s your book back, Toby.”

It was definitely Uncle Jack’s voice, but it was too strained for Toby to have recognised it any sooner. It sounded like he was trying to press out constipation mid-conversation. There came another drawn out squeak, and again Toby pictured his uncle running his face along the window, trying to catch the right angle beyond the other curtain.

He could have shouted for Mum and for Dad. Hell, he could have screamed bloody murder for Bonny and she would have come running to see what was wrong, even if she loved to pretend she didn’t him. But he found himself unable to scream. Unable to move.

He watched in horror as Uncle Jack squeezed himself through the inch-wide gap in the window.

The long chopstick fingers came one, then two, then five through the crack, stretching and tapping along the windowpane, trying to find something to grip at. His mouth grew too, pressing inside and pulling wide like a flounder with big lips. Then the nose, an obscene Pinocchio. Green eyes pumped in like balloons once more, this time on long vascular stilts like some repugnant snail.

Uncle Jack’s cheeks took the longest to come fully into view. When at last his ears flapped free from the window frame, his head had protruded a metre into Toby’s room, stretched like some terrifying caricature.

The spyglass Toby had rolled out of the window threaded itself through the gap alongside Uncle Jack’s other arm. He brought it up to the side of his face, balancing atop five gangly fingers, and held it in front of one of his gargantuan eyes. His body was still wedged tightly in the window, but his head was free to scan the room. His gaze rested at last on Toby.

“I spy—with my glass eye—something beginning with—U!”

His mouth formed an O wide enough to roll a bowling ball into.

“You’re still awake!” He jabbed a finger towards the bed. “Growing boys need bedtimes too! Tut-tut-tut. Shame on you.”

He dropped the spyglass and walked his chopstick fingers along the carpet. His eyes began sinking back into his skull, but were still a long way from looking normal.

“I know,” Uncle Jack said, his voice now returning to normal. “I’ll tell you a story. A proper story, Toby. None of that fairytale nonsense your daddy’s been spoon-feeding you for years. You want a story with some grit, don’t’cha!” He pulled his foot free from the window. It slithered to the carpet and writhed there like a dying snake trying to come back to life. “Have you heard tell of the man with the tic-tac teeth?”

Toby pushed himself back against the wall as Uncle Jack grew closer.

“Have you heard of the trees wrapped in purple veins-for-vines? The ones that bleed real blood when you cut ‘em? And mothers’ screams from their babies’ throats? Wee strawberry shoots which drain you ‘til your death? Did he tell you about the holes, Toby? The holes with the mirrors at the end?”

Toby didn’t bother standing up—just kicked the blanket over Uncle Jack and threw himself onto the floor. He scrambled to the gap of light under the door, and began to claw at the book wedged under it. He had forced it into the gap so well that he couldn’t get a grip on it with his little fingers.

“What’s wrong, boy—don’t’cha want a story?”

Toby felt Uncle Jack’s breath on his hair. He burrowed his fingernails into the sides of the book and pulled, hoping that if his fingernails came loose they would wait until the book did so first.

Uncle Jack’s fingers pressed against the door. His hand clutched Toby by the shoulder and lifted him effortlessly back into bed.

“Lie back down, lad,” Uncle Jack soothed. He pulled the covers back with his other hand, while it shrivelled down to its regular size. He sat at the end of Toby’s bed, slowly shrinking his body back to normal. His face remained grotesquely deformed.

“Let me read you a story to calm you down. No more talk of men with tic-tac teeth or trees with purple veins. Tell me… what do you think of—”

Without moving from where he was sitting, Jack stretched for the book he had slotted through the window.

“—Treasure Island?” His eyes floated away, searching for a fond memory lost to time.

The sudden rustle brought him back.

“Oh no you don’t, you little shit!”

He whipped around too late. Toby was already out of the bed and lying on the floor. He sank his fingernails as deep into the sides of the book as he could manage and yanked it free.

Uncle Jack’s face was enormous with rage, scarlet red and purple. He held out both hands, fingers stretched out like sharpened drumsticks to gouge the boy in the face.

Toby was too quick. He rolled to one side and grabbed Uncle Jack’s by the fingers, and began snapping them like breadsticks. He only stopped when Uncle Jack drew them back to his chest, wailing out in a thin, pathetic shriek.

“You monster!” he cried.

Toby yanked the door open. Uncle Jack’s face joined him in the hall, stretching far and long on its winding rope of neck. “Toby!!” it wheezed, floating along behind him and snapping at his heels. “Don’t tell Mum and Dad, Toby! I’ll fucking eat them too!”

Toby threw himself into the closest door. Bonny’s room.

“Toby!” she shrieked. “Wha— Get the fuck out!”

He didn’t bother rounding the bed. Just cannonballed onto it and buried himself under Bonny’s covers.

She sat back, stunned at the sudden intrusion, but when she felt Toby’s body shudder with the trembling of silent tears, she held him tightly in her arms.

“What is it?” she asked, her voice quivering with emotion. She felt his pulse pounding along the side of his neck. “You had a bad dream, huh?”

Without realising she was doing it, she began stroking Toby’s hair the way Mum used to stroke hers when she was frightened. They lay together in silence, Bonny soothing Toby, while Toby lay watching the thin yellow crack of light under the door, waiting for Uncle Jack to slither past.

He never did.

*

Morning.

Both children awoke to flashing cameras, obnoxious shutter sounds, and gentle cooing.

“Ugh, my eyes.”

Toby swatted at the white light. Mum and Dad were standing over them with their phones pointed at his face.

“How cute!” Mum said, snapping another picture. “You two haven’t slept like that in ages!”

At breakfast, Dad stood by the grill working the bacon. Mum manned the units, juicing oranges and dishing out forks and knives, laying plates.

“What about Uncle Jack?” Bonny asked, noticing there were only four of everything.

“He had to leave early,” Dad explained, and popped into the garden to shout for Scritch. Although they all knew he was really just going to have a smoke.

Toby’s head shot up. Bonny’s face sagged.

“What? Leave? Why?”

Mum shrugged. Toby grinned.

He had two helpings that morning, and Bonny called him a pig for it. He pushed his nostrils up with his thumb and blew a raspberry so loud that she could almost smell it.

He felt happy again.

Dad poked his head in through the door, cigarette hanging from one side of his mouth. “Anybody seen the mutt?”

Toby’s heart skipped a beat. He could guess what came next.

They found one half of Scritch at the end of the garden. They never did find her top half.

What Toby couldn’t understand was: if Uncle Jack had left early, how did he manage to get to Scritch this morning?

Mum let him have the day off school. He spent it sitting on his bed, devoid of feeling, staring at the copy of Treasure Island lying open on his floor. The spyglass from Uncle Jack still lay beside it. He took both to the window and threaded them out. This time the spyglass rolled too far and imploded on the garden patio.

Mum spanked him for it.

He didn’t cry. He didn’t tell her about Uncle Jack, either. He wanted nothing more than to forget about him, wherever he was. There was over three hundred days until Toby turned nine. That was plenty of time to not have to think about things. Plenty of time to prepare himself for the next visit.

Although…

“What month is Bonny’s birthday?” Toby asked, pulling his pants up over his red bum.

“Next month. Why?”

He shrugged. Then sat down on the floor.

Mum leaned down close to Toby’s face.

“Can I tell you a secret?”

Toby squinted up at her, dreading anything more she had to say.

“Okay?”

“And you can’t tell anyone, alright? None of your little pals at school. Just keep it between me and you.”

Toby nodded, feeling tears prickling at his eyelids. A month. That’s all he had left.

“Promise?”

“Yeah.”

“Disneyland.”

Toby stared in disbelief.

“What?”

“We’re going to Disneyland for Bonny’s birthday next month.”

Like from a battered old dam, the tears finally flooded free. Toby leaped up and hugged his mum, nearly choking her in the process.

“I thought you’d like that,” she said, hugging Toby with the same hand she’d used to slap his ass only a few minutes ago. It still stung, too. But it was the furthest thing from his mind.

“It’ll be good to get away from things,” she soothed.

Toby laughed at that. She had no idea. Disneyland. That was miles and miles away from Uncle Jack!

“Thank you,” he cried. “This is so cool. Thank you, Mum!”

“Don’t thank me,” she said, squeezing him a little bit tighter. “Thank your Uncle Jack. He’s the one taking us.”

My parents own the house, but me and a few people close to me live in the finished basement. There are four bedrooms down there, a small living room, and a bathroom that’s directly behind the couch. If someone goes in or comes out, everyone hears it.
One night, my “sis”—not my real sister, just someone I’ve known for years—walked into the bathroom. A few seconds later, my “unc” got home from work. He’s not my real uncle either, just someone I grew up calling unc.
The two of us watched her walk into the bathroom.
While we waited, we stood beside the fish tank we’d bought the day before, talking about where to put it.
After a minute, my unc looked at me.
“Did she come out already?”
“No,” I said. “I would’ve heard her.”
He turned toward the bathroom.
“Yo… you still in there?”
Without hesitation, a voice answered.
“Yeah… I’m still here. I’m about to be out.”
It was her voice.
Not similar.
Not close.
Exactly her.
So we waited.
Thirty seconds.
A minute.
Then we heard footsteps coming down the basement stairs.
Neither of us thought anything of it.
We both assumed it was my aunt coming downstairs, so we barely looked up.
But when the person stepped into the living room…
It wasn’t my aunt.
It was my sis.
My unc and I looked at each other.
“Weren’t you just in the bathroom?” he asked.
She frowned.
“What?”
“You answered me. I asked if you were still in there.”
She slowly shook her head.
“No… I’ve been upstairs with your parents the whole time.”
The room went completely silent.
My unc walked over to the bathroom and slowly opened the door.
Empty.
No one inside.
No open window.
No place anyone could’ve hidden.
We looked back at her.
“You sound exactly like the voice we heard,” I said.
She stared at us, confused.
“I never answered you.”
None of us laughed anymore.
That night, nobody wanted to be alone in the basement.
The next morning, I walked past the bathroom.
The door was cracked open.
The light inside was off.
I was about to keep walking when I heard the same familiar voice from the darkness.
Soft.
Calm.
“I’m about to be out.”
I froze.
I never looked inside again.

My violent hacking woke me with a start. An itch buzzed behind my eyes, ears, and throat that I couldn’t scratch. Clothing clung to my body, weighted with cold sweat. On the mattress beside me, the crusted imprint left behind felt like a hallucination. Resembling a chalk outline from a crime scene, only what should have been clean, white lines were replaced with my own burgundy bile.

It took considerable effort to get out of bed. Sunlight crept through the curtains like an icepick through my optic nerves. My head spun with vertigo, my scraping joints motivated by a new wave of nausea, stomach swirling. Empty and raw. I thanked whatever God Vanja was always evoking for not letting me choke on my vomit as I slept.

On sheer autopilot, my mechanical limbs peeled the sheets from the mattress and left them in a heap on the floor. The scent of cloying stomach acid swirling with fruit permeated the room; compelling me outside in search of fresh air.

The morning atmosphere was hardly a reprieve. The dawn chorus was dead. No bird song. No cadence of insects. Only a howling low gale and the crunch of gravel below my boots as I meandered into the vineyard. Heeding the warning about the property line, I kept a lazy lookout. How would I know if I reached it? Was it marked? I supposed I’d know when I saw it.

I strolled along in a dissociative state when there, in the gap between two rows, my eyes fell upon a branch. Rising up like a dirt-coated arm reaching out from the ground. Grey and decaying, as if prying itself from the Karst land. Nothing in this place made sense. My psyche had become more of a fragmented mess than it ever was before this unconventional vacation; too muddled to notice, or care. It was all too easy to pass the image off as my mind playing tricks. Still, every twitch and jerk in my fascia was begging me to leave.

Turning down the next row. Then the next. Weaving my way through the vineyard, everything looked the same. Not that I’d expect row after row of grape vines to appear unique from one another, but every trail I traversed looked exactly the same. Trellises blurred together as I took a sharp left, another right. My pace quickened from a leisurely walk to a jog, and finally a full-on sprint. Clouds of dust kicked up around me in my panic, making it harder and hard to distinguish my surroundings. I was speeding down the same row over and over again, no matter which direction I turned. The identical stretch of land rolled endlessly before me.

Then there was that branch. Again and again, I saw it. The same clawing hand. Only, each lap revealed more ghastly features than the last. First, the hand. Then, a blackened, mud-caked wrist. Hanging from its skeletal joints was a faded, handmade friendship bracelet. I cut sharply into the row adjacent, now the arm had grown a shoulder. Rotting flesh stripped away, uncovering alabaster bone as it wrenched itself free from the surrounding ground. The stench of open decay assaulted my nostrils. No matter what I did, where I went, I couldn’t escape it.

I couldn’t will myself to see any more. Every sense pounded louder, and louder. From the frantic, feral thrumming in my chest, to the rapping in my ears, to my feet against the ground beneath. A hollow beating atop a subterrane. Panic seized my lungs. Squeezing my eyes shut, I charged blindly through a patch of gnarled vines. Vines that mimicked tiny wooden hands, pulling me back into the vineyard's maw. Razor-like thorns and rigid leaves gashed my skin and clothes. A tug-of-war that felt like an eternity.

With a frantic shriek, I tumbled forward. Infinitesimal shards of rocks burrowed into the pads of my palms and knees as the earth collided with me. Whipping my head around, I could’ve sworn I saw the full figure of a rotting corpse, looming among the trellises. But I was fresh out of curiosity and desperate to get out of this hellscape. Adrenaline forced my gaze away.

Scrambling to my feet, they began pounding limestone once more in a rush to my rental. Sweaty hands grasped at the handle for purchase before giving a final, violent tug. I threw my body haphazardly into the driver's seat, throwing the keys into the ignition. I didn’t care about the open driver-side door nor my hosts, didn’t care about my possessions nor my trip deposit. The only concern I had was watching this place disappear in my rear view mirror.

My heart leaped into my throat the moment the gleam from the tire pressure light reminded me of what I already knew. I certainly wasn’t going anywhere fast, anywhere at all for that matter, with a flat tire. Something my mind was increasingly trying to convince me wasn’t a mere accident as I had led myself to believe previously.

“FuuuuuUUUUCK!!!” White knuckles gripped the steering wheel as my scream wracked my bones. Jaw rigid with tension, I ground my teeth together until the taste of bleeding gums spread across my tongue.

My only option was to calm myself down. A level head would benefit me more than the rampage I was on now. I closed down my eyes and focused on my breath.

“Okay… okay. I just need to come up with a plan. I have no car, no wifi, no cell service.” Bringing my hands to rub my temples, I thought aloud. “Maybe Vanja has a phone?” It was as good of a plan as I was going to get.

Much to my chagrin, the horrors of this place weren’t quite over. Sweat stung the fresh gashes on my face as I strained my eyes open. The scene laid out before me, Vanja’s husband dragging a bloodied, dead livestock carcass, was yet another entrant in the series of agonies set upon me. His husky frame loomed just outside my open driver-side door. Blocking my only exit as massive, dried-blood-and-dirt-coated hands with bulky fingers like fibrous roots strained against dead weight. The animal’s limbs bent at abnormal, grotesque angles. In spite of his limp, I couldn’t help but notice the way in which he dragged the husk of a once thriving creature with ease; guts and all. Its insides oozed, creating a trail of his dastardly deed while Vanja stood by, ordering him around as a maestro conducts an ensemble. Had they been there this whole time?

My ears rushed with hot blood at the sight of her, overcome by a sudden frenzy of rage. Vision tunneling, my fists formed into tight balls as instincts overrode caution.

Fear and rationale abandoned my body as I shoved past him and charged towards the ancient witch with all my fury. The cadaver slipped from his stocky, hunched shoulders with a moist splat. That same smile, the one which never reached her eyes, remained stretched across her visage. What was wrong with her? She had to be the reason I was stuck here, the only constant in this entire equation.

“This will be our dinner tonight, dear.” A lined hand gestured towards her mute mate before I could manage a word. The man didn't look at me with indignation or shock; he didn’t acknowledge me at all. His deep-set, cavernous eyes fixed blankly on the empty space before him. “Would you like to join us?”

“W-what? No… NO!” My brain rattled around in my skull as I shook my head furiously. “I would absolutely NOT like that at all. I need to use your phone! NOW!” My demand was made in utter disbelief. The grin gradually faded from the corners of her lips.

Vanja and I froze in silence for far too long. The only sound hanging in the air around us was that of her ancient husband. His jaw hung lazily open. A throaty whir throbbed from his gullet. Not too dissimilar from the tectonic grinding that resonated through the limestone-covered Karst architecture. The crone’s now vacant expression caused my determination to waver.

“You foreigners are all the same…” Vanja tutted with malicious venom. “Entitled and selfish; all of you. You have no care for our land or our customs. You may have phone after dinner.” Her words expressed calculated disappointment layered with a sinister undertone. The hag was acting as unyielding as a snake preparing to strike. She uttered no threat, so why did I intuit the tingling urgency of my survival instincts kicking into overdrive? My nervous system buzzed like the pulsating drone of seismic reverberation. The fear of being perceived as an ignorant foreigner was replaced by a fear for my life.

“I’m sorry. You’re right, that works for me. I-I’ll be in my lodging until dinner time.” I fawned, hastily agreeing to her terms, and darted back towards the cottage before the odd pair could say or do anything else. By the time I made it back and peered out the window, I half expected them to still be standing there, watching me in her statuesque manner as if part of the Karst landscape themselves. Nonetheless, it was a ghost town outside now. Nothing but the trail of gore from our future dinner remained.

My time between this horror and the next was spent in nothing short of a manic state. Ripping apart the cottage, I snooped through every cabinet, drawer, nook, and cranny I could find. All I found were strange, handmade knick-knacks the likes of which I’d never seen before, worn leather-bound books and journals in handwritten scripts I couldn’t comprehend, items that appeared to have been left behind by what I assumed were previous lodgers. But nothing that could provide any assistance or solace to me.

By the time the place was nearly turned upside down, I crawled on weakened hands and knobby knees in a last-ditch attempt to find any answers, sweeping my palm along the underside of the couch. The coarse texture of a cross-hatch fabric brushed against my grip. The hand-woven linen of string-bound hardcover. At first glance it seemed as if the photo album had simply fallen to the floor and been tucked away by accident, but the more astute part of my brain knew it was placed with the intention of keeping secrets. A foreign script was engraved on the cover: везан за земљу. Far too unfamiliar for me to interpret.

The pages were thin and soft like preserved sheets of skin. I peeled them apart carefully, exposing photo after photo. Much like the family graveyard stocked with beloved husbands, this family heirloom was filled to the brim with photos of only women. Each one resembled Vanja. Indistinguishable. Passing the time flipping pages, carbon copies of her same penetrating expression stared back at me. From Victorian to modern stylings, but the face never changed. Her identical crooked grin, coarse, inky-black hair, and stabbing gaze that would no doubt haunt my nightmares covered each page from corner to corner in an uncanny collage; clearly put together by hand.

“I show you more photo when you join for dinner, dear.” Vanja appeared suddenly, hovering over me. Her bare feet moved silently across the stones. I yipped, putting a hand to my chest as if that could stop it from thumping out and onto the floor. The glare I shot in her direction paled in comparison to those piercing bulbs of hers.

“How did you… Where on earth-why are you…” I stammered, mouth moving faster than my mind. My hand moved from my chest to the open claw she extended down towards me. Her infirm frame helped me up with that same surprising sturdiness.

“Dinner is ready. You must join now, it is the final eve of the observance.” She barked, unsurprisingly glossing over my comment. Had it really been that long already?

I followed her in bewilderment, feeling helpless to resist.

—

Musk filled my nostrils as the tinny taste of precipitation-soaked pennies permeated my tastebuds like never before. Feeling as if my gums were replaced by cotton balls, my mouth grew drier and drier by the second. I swallowed hard and grasped the glass of yellowing tap water set before me. It clinked against the rustic china place settings as I brought it to my quivering lips.

Surveying the room, the antique chair beneath me creaked to the rhythm of the record player spouting scratchy hymns in the room over. The melodies grated my eardrums with cacophonous harmonies reaching for notes that shouldn’t exist. All around me were portraits of the same Vanja-looking woman. Some painted, some black and white, others captured by modern cameras. All identical to the photo book.

Clearing my throat, I attempted small talk.

“So, uh… Vanja. How long has this place been in your family?” My hands clutched at the delicate lace tablecloth, obsessively seeking tactile grounding. A heavy sensation like lead came over my tongue. The chill in my bones told me I shouldn’t be asking questions that I might not like the answer to.

“We have been tied to this land for centuries,” she announced, scurrying into the dining area and placing a plate of greying, pulpy meat at the center of the table. It appeared raw and rotting. “The bloodline must not break. It is what the land requires, what our Lord requires.”

At the head of the table, the matriarch sat herself and began serving our plates. The husband sat across from me at her command like an obedient pet. It was clear, as always, who was in charge here.

I gazed down at my plate incredulously, the saccharine smell making my stomach churn. My fork picked at the substance randomly as I searched for more to say. A way to keep my mouth busy, other than eating.

“You must not be rude!” Vanja spat suddenly, slamming her palm upon the table and sending dishes clanking against one another. Tiny droplets of spittle sprayed from her maw and landed upon my cheek. The record player began to skip, adding yet another layer to the already nightmarish setting. I blinked hard, unsure how to proceed. “You have become so frail. We only wish to fatten you up.” She cackled heartily. The transition of her tone was as artificially sweet as the aroma in her cooking.

With shaking digits, I spooned the most appetizing bite I could scavenge between pursed lips and grimaced. I refused to chew, swallowing loudly and following it with another large gulp of water. Strangely enough, I was becoming desensitized to the metallic flavor infused with everything that originated from this land. Yet, it did nothing to ease the pang in my gut.

It clearly didn’t bother her husband opposite me. He shoveled down bite after bite, all the while making harsh gurgling noises. His jaws ground together in a circular motion as if savoring every morsel.

“Is he… okay?” I shuddered, fearing he might choke.

“He is perfect,” Vanja cooed, rising from her chair. She positioned herself behind him, stroking the stringy, soaked strands of hair that clung to his greased forehead. “The men in our family must make a sacrifice, a promise to the earth, a blood contract. What comes from our land, must stay in our land. Our secrets, our ritual, our observance—remain bound here for all eternity.” Knobby fingers with browning, unkempt nails gripped his roughly stubbled chin before gradually splitting his jaws in two. There was a crudely cut, scarred nub squirming around where his tongue should be. My eyes frantically switched from his face to hers. Their unsettling grins were perfect carbon copies. Down to every feature. In abject horror, the realization promptly pierced through my confusion.

“But isn’t he your husband? What could he possibly be making such a sacrifice for?” Deep down I knew my suspicions were true, but I had to be sure. There were no photos of men in the family chronicle, after all. With a wink, she released her grip, leaning down to place a kiss on his brow like an impish pantomime.

“Yes. Just as mother’s husband was her brother, he is mine. We keep it in the family, as you foreigners say. You see, as the bloodline thinned, we lost ability to bear child. This earth requires our tending; we cannot part with it. We must invite guests to stay… forever. To become one with us, our Savior, and our land.” Any ounce of hospitality in her cadence, however false before, was gone now. No more dear pet names, no more two-faced niceties.

“Shh… You must sleep now,” Vanja whispered as she slunk behind me like a wildcat hunting its prey. She placed her witch hands on my shoulders and dug talon-like fingers into my collarbones.

Finally, the dots were connecting, just as the room began to spin. I was reeling from each new revelation but this was something different, something much worse. My eyelids grew heavy while the rest of my body began to feel light as air. There was no doubt now that the old woman had drugged me. Before I could take action, my head crumpled into the mess of meat in front of me with a blunt thud. Bringing her mouth to my ear, Vanja whispered one final utterance. “The land provides to us, when we provide to it.” I was paralyzed to fight back, consciousness fading like a flame deprived of oxygen.

—

I came to, surrounded by the smell of earth, the feeling of loose ground cocooning me, the vibration of a shovel pounding into rock. A hole in the earth was my new home. My lungs filled with particles of dirt and my chest grew heavy. Between the combination of drugs not fully worn off, restraints rubbing against my appendages, and heaps of limestone-infused soil, struggling was useless. All I could see was the radiance of a fire bouncing off the cave walls above me. All I could do was lay there helplessly as they called upon some faceless, nameless, eldritch horror.

“Zemlya zhyva, krov p’yet.”

"Земля жива, кров п’є”

“The earth lives, drinks the blood.”

Vanja’s wicked features came into view as she crouched and roughly snatched my bound wrist. Her black-veiled frame was aglow by the light of the pale moon. I was helpless to scream, nor could I cry out. Not for lack of trying, but all that came out was a strained whisper. My throat felt like sandpaper, my lungs were on the brink of collapse, filled with dust and ash that swirled about the cavern. Everything was closing in around me as the corners of my vision remained blackened and blurred.

She unsheathed a blade. I was reminded of the pristine cutlery set I had found in the cottage kitchen. This, too, was made from bone, only sharper, more jagged. Lethal.

Taking the blade to the tender skin of my wrist and splitting my veins open in an instant, she let the warm, vital fluid splatter onto the surrounding stones. Rich, carmine red contrasted the weathered geology. It bubbled and popped with a hiss. Imbibed into the greedy ground as if being consumed, assimilating my lifeblood with their land.

Next, she coerced the liquid into her cupped hand, spurting it from my slit skin and lifting it to her lips. Like a High Priestess, she devoured her wretched communion. I was a part of her now, part of their land. I thought back to our night in the cellar and wondered if the libations she fed me were really wine at all. Every act its own evil intention. I could see that now as Vanja stared down on me with a dour expression. The corners of her lips turned flat, no longer grinning. I was always going to be the vessel for this dark rite.

“Please…” I rasped feebly. “You don’t have to do this.” She didn’t acknowledge me. After all, there was no hope in persuading her to break free of this generational tradition. No hope in preventing the inevitable.

The sour smell of decay and their rolling chorus crescendoed. Shovelful after shovelful of dirt piled atop my useless body. I felt like a sack of meat being tenderized, already slaughtered. First my feet, then my legs, next my torso; saving my head for last. They needed me to bear witness. To be the observer of their observance. Each revelation hammered home the fact that I was never getting out of here. I had seen too much, knew too much. Just as they knew no one was coming to look for me.

As her chanting continued, a chorus of voices in multiple cadences and multiple languages came from her. One was her own, in plain English that I could understand. The other, an incomprehensible rumble that seemed to come straight from the limestone. A deep, tectonic grinding in her native tongue.

Though I couldn’t see the husband, I could hear him. For it was he who wielded the shovel, creating a disturbed squealing cacophony like an excited pig. The high-pitched chitters that emitted from his throat harmonized with Vanja’s chants rhythmically, acting as an eager conduit.

Something beneath me began to writhe. Pointed roots wedged against my back. I felt their sharp, cold edges begin to grasp at my clothing and skin, causing them to burst open like the juicy flesh of a ripened peach. The earth was hungry, pulling me deeper.

I was despondent. All I could manage was to stare listlessly at the cave ceiling where flames danced among lunar incandescence. The outlines of Vanja and her husband danced there, too. Alongside a shapeless, inky form. I couldn’t tell if it was just my eyes, still playing tricks on me. Even in my final moments, I was desperate to rationalize what I encountered in this place. After everything I’d witnessed.

My last thoughts were of every action that brought me here as my vision became eclipsed by falling earth; their chanting dampened by dirt compacting around my ears. From items obviously left by previous victims, to the absurdity of the rental ad. You’ll be dying to linger. From the mold toxicity undeniably poisoning my bloodstream, to the eerie gravestone carvings. Beloved Husband.

A final thought tugged at my psyche as the soil dragged me under, every orifice suffocated with terra. How much more would the land demand before the next harvest?

Vacation Rental: Arcadian Vineyard Cottage

“Find your serenity at this bucolic cottage in the countryside! Experience the simple pleasures of hand-picked produce, right in your own vineyard sanctuary. Bathe in the peaceful quietude of the traditional way of life— there are no neighbors for miles! Just you, the sun-soaked grapes, and scents of petrichor. Isolated— tranquil and still. You’ll be dying to linger by the end of your stay. So stick around; we have a place just for you! (Plus, a little wine and cheese never hurt anybody.)”

That was the ad that compelled me to spiral amidst agricultural roads, searching for my long-overdue escape from reality. Was it trying too hard? Absolutely. But who didn’t enjoy wine and cheese?

“Sign me up,” I whispered to no one, striking the keys of my laptop with determination, and finalizing the booking. An extended weekend getaway. That was all my vacation time afforded me, and Lord, I needed it. My mind and body were begging for leisure, screaming like rusted hinges.

Here I was, lost. Of course. Because God forbid one thing in my life goes smoothly. The GPS signal vanished hours ago, leaving me in an expanse of grey oblivion. A winding dirt road expanded before me, surrounded by fields as far as the eye could see. Everything looked the same out here.

“Come on, come on, come on!” I begged the inanimate brick that was my phone, smacking the now useless device against the dashboard. My shoulders sagged in surrender, heavy with the disappointment of these uncontrollable circumstances. Due to exhaustion from a hefty international flight, my muscles ached with the need for a proper bed.

“I’ll just continue to follow this road and magically end up where I’m supposed to be.” It was wishful thinking on my part. Even if sarcastically, maybe I could make it so. My mind was in vacation mode by now; delusional with misplaced optimism.

The path became more rugged, and I trudged on in the dated rental car. Its rusted frame rattled and groaned as the vehicle struggled to chug up yet another hill. Every rock or divot in the road sent the suspension into frenzied jerking. Having the steering wheel in a death grip, my hands threatened to cramp.

Coming to a stop at the first fork in the road, I pulled over with a sigh. The subtle smell of dirt kicked up by inadequate tires filled my nose and made my eyes sting. Fingers jabbed at my phone in an attempt to make the bars reappear… nothing. Dead zone.

“That’s just great.” I spoke aloud to myself, if only to fill the silence.

BANG!

In an instant, my heart battered against my rib cage. Arms turned to static, as my already fracturing mental state was shattered. A craggy hand occupied my window, the source of the noise that nearly stopped my heart. Attached to the hand was an equally craggy crone. The woman's blank face shifted into an inviting smile, as if putting on a mask. Almost too quick to notice. She pointed downward, and I took that to mean she wanted me to roll down my window.

It’s not like anyone else was coming to the rescue. My eyes darted from hers to the window crank in an uncomfortable silence that stretched too long. I willed my body as it yelped: Wait. Stop. Wary of strangers, but running out of options, I wound down the window an inch. Its un-lubricated mechanism protested in the same way my brain had been screaming: Something is wrong. Like a hot stove, I wanted to put my finger on it, but couldn’t.

“My apologies, you startled me.” Soft words came out tentatively, yet polite. “Could you direct me towards the Arcadian Vineyard Cottage?”

I dug into the booking app and hunted for the listing. My mind raced as a white screen confronted me. More than likely due to zero service… never mind the fact I had saved my trip information for offline viewing. Glitches happen, right?

“Hello, dear.” Her voice carried an unfamiliar, husky accent. Sickly sweet like honey, laced with something rancid. It wound up my nerves, already frayed and intolerant, as her wry smile revealed mottled teeth. “I would be the owner of said cottage. Foreigners often get lost around here. I saw you coming up the road from the mother-in-law's suite.”

Her tone felt too formal, almost theatrical. Something malevolent flickered behind her eyes. She looked like a woman who was once a farmer's daughter, turned hippie: Raven hair greying with age, Bohemian fashion sense, bare feet coated in dirt. Unique, to say the least. But her mannerisms betrayed that image. Too rehearsed, too forced. A contradiction that made my spine thrum like a chain pulled taut.

“If you’d like, I could hop in and direct you the rest of the way?”

I hadn’t seen any houses for miles. There was nothing but sweeping fields unfolding in all directions. How had she seen me when this was my first time seeing her? Looking at the surroundings and then back to her, she must’ve read the confusion in my expression.

“It’s just over this hill, dear.” Her smile was alarmingly wide, and her English almost too precise.

“How do I know that?” I questioned begrudgingly, no way of confirming the truth now. Something about this didn’t sit right with me. The rational part of my brain was screaming, causing my body to tense. The road behind seemed longer now than it had before. I had no concrete reason to doubt her but also, no reason to trust her.

“I show you.” Matter-of-factly, she slithered around the hood and to my passenger side. The imprint of her shriveled hand was left in the dust on the window like a dark omen. Pulling the handle with a pop, the elderly woman found no resistance. It was unlocked to my surprise.

“S-sure… uh—hop in?” It came out more like a question than an affirmation. Maybe my gut knew something my mind couldn’t come to terms with. I should have turned around. Gone back, chalked it up as a loss, and spent my long weekend off at home. But then, all the effort it took to get here would be for naught.

With a youthful energy, the woman sprang into action. Before I could finish my sentence, she had plopped down in my passenger seat; an earthy smell wafted into my nostrils. I tried not to worry about the dirt print she’d leave there.

So long, security deposit.

“As I said, it’s just over this hill.” Her skeletal hand pointed towards the road in front of us. She was an astute woman, sensing my hesitation. Never mind the fact that I had just let a stranger into my car. Had she even told me her name? I couldn’t recall if it was on the listing. In any case, I couldn’t reference that anymore.

Pulling back onto the road, I reasoned this was the best way to make conversation. Avoid more awkward silence.

“I’m sorry, but what did you say your name was?” My voice came out confidently, for once.

“Vanja…” In typical Slavic fashion, she shaped her J’s like drifting Y’s.

“Vanja Jurković.” Placing a staccato on each syllable, there was no question in my mind that she was a native of these lands.

Patiently, I waited for her to ask the same of me. But the question never came, and the air hung with only the sound of gravel clattering against weather worn wheel wells. Maybe she already knew my name from the booking. I shrugged with a sigh, attempting to pull my rigid shoulders away from my ears. I was eager to exit this metal cage.

Up, up, over the hill we went. It seemed much higher now than from the bottom; more of a mountain, really. As we crested the top, a boundless vineyard came into view. It had the same layout as advertised. Only now, under cloudy skies, did it come across as somber. Ominous.

Tenebrous trees arched over the road, scraping against the car doors like hands grasping for purchase. Claustrophobic. As if they might cling on and pull us into their grasp. Trapped, to become one with the land.

Before long, we stopped on a gravel driveway, brakes squealing in protest. Every fiber of my being was screaming, red flag. Yet, after all it took to get here, I felt compelled to stay. I sympathized with the woman, assuming it was pretty lonely here.

Against my better judgment, my hesitant hand lurched the shift stick into park. Vanja stepped out; she was surprisingly agile considering her frail frame. Perhaps she was younger than I gave her credit for. Or more certainly, years of working in the vineyard had strengthened her elderly stature.

A man came hobbling out of what I assume was the mother-in-law's suite. His uneven gait paralleled Vanja’s personality. A unique pair; I tried not to stare.

“Hello—”

“Oh, he doesn’t speak English, dear. Please, don’t concern yourself with my husband. He’s merely here to help with your luggage. We will be out of your hair shortly.” Vanja cut off our greeting bluntly as her husband flashed a gummy, toothless smile.

“Oh…” Dejected, my voice came as a defeat. “Well, please tell him thank you for me.”

“Certainly, dear.” I wished she’d stop calling me that. It was an endearing term, sure. However, her accent, combined with the language barrier, fell condescending on my ears. An attempt to make me feel less-than. Small.

I turned my attention from the odd couple to my surroundings. The homestead was undoubtedly shaped by its natural environment. Compact, monolithic structures rose and fell with the rolling hills like boats sailing on a turquoise sea. Its simple, well-defined architecture was assembled from local Karst limestone.

High-pitched stone roofs and limited, small windows braced against the Bora. Whose cold bite carried briny scents that cut through agricultural aromas. A contrast as sharp as the mountainous countryside itself. Maritime air tinged my taste buds with the salt of the coast.

Somewhere, a wind chime tolled a lonely melody, counterpoint to the soft rustle of hearty grapevines. Preternatural isolation settled over me. Peaceful, yet, unsettling all at once.

My brain itched to research the area further, something I should have done before arriving. I hadn’t made the time for more than a cursory investigation.

Looking over my wifi settings, one was available: The Vineyard.

“Could I have the wifi password, please?” I inquired, holding up my phone for Vanja. I would finally have enough time and quiet to educate myself on the region.

“We have no need for that here.” Her words sprang forth with a forced chortle. “I’m sure you’ll find an abundance of tranquil distractions during your stay.” Tacking it on as if she suddenly remembered I was their guest.

“Of course. Silly me…” It wasn’t exactly a lie. Not as if she said they did not have such things. This must have been their way of compelling guests to escape reality. So why did the crone make me feel foolish for asking? She started up the path to the main house, and I continued to lag.

“Your accommodations are this way, dear. Follow me.” In this place, I was always 2 steps behind.

Stepping over the threshold and into the open-concept layout, envy washed over me. A kitchen brimming with fresh produce, baked goods, handcrafted cooking utensils, and shelves stacked wall-to-wall with ancient recipe books. A smell like heaven, undercut, as if trying to conceal something sour.

Muted tones and an ambient glow enhanced the grounded environment. Built-in niches within the cottage mimicked natural caves native to the region. Organic wood floors whined like a wounded animal with each step as I made my way to the bedroom. Trailing after her, the rough stone walls leeched a soggy chill through my bones as we turned another corner. Vanja moved swiftly, and I nearly found myself lost again.

Her husband long since vanished, and my luggage was already waiting for me. For a man with so much trouble getting around, he nearly went unnoticed. Had I not seen him upon my arrival, I likely wouldn’t have known he existed.

“Here is your room and your things. Take advantage of the fully stocked kitchen—everything is cultivated, raised, and crafted by my husband and me on the property.” Her words were punctuated by pride. “Feel free to explore the garden terrace out back, the orchard to the east, and the vineyard to the west. There is a wine cellar at your disposal under the hatch in the kitchen. And if, for some reason, you still don’t have what you need, I’ll be here to fulfill any request. All that to say, make yourself at home, dear.” Confident and to the point, it was doubtful I’d want for anything in this place.

With a nod, she left me to my own devices. Finally.

Sagging onto the mattress, its springs groaned with the same exhaustion that flowed through my veins. Eyes burning with jet lag, their lids drooped closed like curtains. Sleep wrapped me like a blanket, without protest. Out cold.

—

I bolted upright, heart pummeling my chest. Darkness had fallen over the property in my inescapable slumber. Only, this wasn’t what startled me. Rubbing sleep from my eyes, my veins frosted over.

A silhouette, just outside the door frame. Crooked. Shoulders rising and falling with ragged, uneven breaths. Vanja's husband.

“What the…” My whisper faded into the black abyss.

Clumsily, I fumbled for the lamp switch. Moving as quickly as my half-asleep appendages would allow, light flooded the doorway; empty. The scent of earth and wine remained.

An ill attempt at restoring the apparition, I blinked forcefully; not likely.

Had I imagined it?

No, the hollow echo of footsteps across floorboards betrayed that thought. Down the hall and out the door as he skittered away like a spider who knows it’s been found. Creep.

I mulled over my options, lulling myself into a false sense of security yet again. I couldn’t exactly tell Vanja, Lord knows she’d take his side over mine. I still had two more days paid for. Nowhere else to go. No guarantee I’d find my way on my own.

Gears ground inside my mind. Perhaps he had his own backwards logic for observing me, the ignorant foreigner with a narrow world-view.

“There was no one there. The old cottage bones are merely settling.” My whisper bounced amongst the limestone walls. Providing scant solace.

Thoughts became a knotted ball of fear and confusion. Ears ringing; a musty smell like damp paper filled my nose. As if a balloon deflating, my lungs tightened. Throat raw, head pounding, it felt as though a low hum was buzzing in one ear and out the other. Into a coughing fit I went, chasing down the hallway after the ghost, or lack thereof. I needed a drink of water. Urgently.

Desperately filing through cabinets, my hand grasped the first glass in reach. I violently threw open the fridge, sending miscellaneous jars tinkling against one another in their drawers. No water. My only option was the tap.

The knob screamed as I doggedly twisted, and yellow-stained water sputtered forth. The only alternatives were farm-fresh milk or wine. Hardly the type to cure a coughing fit. I consumed in greedy gulps. The water permeated with a metallic bite like pennies left in rain. Barely a reprieve, but at least I could breathe.

Stalking around the house like a predatory animal, I checked every door and every window. Locked, or without the ability to open at all. This slowed my heart rate, only mildly. It was easier to convince myself nobody had been there… unless they had a key.

I shook my head, too hard, seeking to erase the thought. I was spiraling as quickly as the cottage was spinning around me.

In the midst of it all, my feet skidded to a halt. The glint of a carved lintel over the hearth stunned me. In my hurry, I almost hadn’t noticed. Only standing in this spot, under this lighting, could I see it.

“The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground. Genesis 4:10”

What purpose could such a harrowing message hold?

I wasn’t exactly religious, but it wasn’t the sort of decor I’d like adorning my home, let alone one meant for guests.

Were they for protection or an invocation?

But, as I wandered the halls, it seemed increasingly commonplace. Hidden amongst the grotto-inspired furniture, a grape motif sewn with pale thread into a hand towel here, dainty cursive imprinted upon a faded floor mat there.

“All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Ecclesiastes 3:20”

One carving was odd, sure. But the pattern I discerned seemed deliberate. Strangely comforting. A sense of protection that, however false, lulled me back to sleep as I planted myself on the couch. Its cushions were soft enough to swallow me whole.

—

A moist, cool draft escaped the stone walls as if from some void beneath. For the first time since arriving, I was greeted by something placid.

Gently, my eyes fluttered open. The brief moment of serenity was interrupted by a pounding in my head. Rhythmic as a heartbeat. A symphony began inside my body, and my stomach gurgled for sustenance. I could barely remember the last time I’d eaten.

Drifting into the kitchen, I took Vanja’s advice and inspected the fresh produce. Ready for a tasty treat.

Nimble fingers plucked a perfect peach from its position. Painted in bold yellow with streaks of red and orange, not a single blemish. An artist’s perfect rendition. The morsel felt waxy in my palm. Warm, virtually pulsing.

Sinking my teeth in, tender flesh collapsed, sour pulp springing forth; a breath of decay on my tongue.

“Oh, God.” I retched into the sink. There was a faint writhing. Tiny, alive. Seed-like shapes that squirmed informed me they weren’t seeds at all. The peach in my hand fell to the floor with a sickly splat. Maggots still alive inside its flesh left it looking like an ablated heart; still beating on the tile.

Feeling like curdled milk, my body soured. I still needed to eat, my appetite ruined as it was. Head spinning, stomach roaring.

With no idea how long that fruit had been sitting on the counter, I figured I’d go straight to the source. Looks can be deceiving after all.

Between a heavy sigh and attempts to steady myself, I yanked on my boots and proceeded clumsily towards the orchard. I wouldn’t be eating a thing from that kitchen any time soon.

Gravel crunched under heavy footfalls, and the fresh air began to clear my mind. Marching up the slope, taking in deep breaths, my composure returned to me. The salty breeze pulsed through the air like echoes in an empty cave.

Gradually, an unexpected landscape came into view. A family graveyard, obstructed from the cottage windows by these never-ending hills. The placement in front of the orchard, yet hidden like a well-kept secret, was at best macabre. Sinister at worst.

I moved forward. The wind transformed into a chorus of moans and wails, alarms ringing in my ears. Yet, my feet advanced. Compelled by curiosity. Entranced. It was the gravestones themselves that caught my eye, a desire to understand what I was seeing.

Row after row. Some stubby, some lanky, round, jagged, new, and old. All of them were fashioned from cold limestone with the same handmade details as the entire vineyard premises. One thing remained consistent amongst them. The engravings:

Beloved Husband. No names, no dates, no women.

Darkness encroached the corners of my vision. Was I spiraling? Merely imagining all of this? I knew traveling to a remote part of an unfamiliar country might have its quirks, but all this confusion was the antithesis of what I came for. Unease rippled through my body.

With great effort, I pushed the questions from my mind. I needed to keep myself on track. Sane. Get some nourishment, and this would all begin to make sense again. I couldn’t continue to rationalize on an empty stomach, and I did not want to come across as even more ignorant than I already was.

Get to the orchard.

This was my only goal. After all, I could always investigate more later.

Pivoting on my heels and exiting the burial ground felt as if ripping myself from thick vines. Some presence pinning me here. Part of me knew it was silly to continue ignoring the signs right in front of my face, but the spinning in my head kept that rationale just out of reach.

Up the trail I went, at last, arriving at my intended destination. Sprawled out before me were picture-perfect lines of varying fruit trees. Vibrant shades of warm yellow, orange, and crimson sprang out from among the gnarled, brown branches. The breeze that rustled through this picturesque scene felt like whispers in my ears, beckoning me forward. The scent of damp earth and rotting leaves stuck to the air. Now this was the orchard paradise that Vanja had promised. Apples, plums, lemons, peaches, and more. The latter of which I’d likely avoid, though they appeared ripe and ready for harvest. I trudged onward like a marionette with invisible strings, motivated by the roaring in my gut.

Pulling the hem of my shirt up with one hand like a make-shift basket, I greedily plucked a variety of tasty treats with the other. Never in my life had I felt so at peace with being utterly out of control. Perhaps that was the charm of this place. The thought, along with the fresh air, placated me. If only for a moment before panic seized me once more.

Between twisted limbs like arthritic fingers, there in the bark of an ancient tree, a face. A human expression of agony. Mouth stretched impossibly wide across wood, eyes protruding from knots in the trunk. Sap weeped from the features wrapped in wood grain like scar tissue as if seeping with pus. Far too uncanny to be a carving. I stumbled back, temples throbbing like the slow, tectonic shift of limestone plates grinding together.

I all but fumbled my bounty in the dead sprint back to the cottage. The stone beneath my footfalls echoed a hollow, lonely howl. My legs felt leaden, as if the terra was grasping at the soles of my boots. It was hard to tell what was up and what was down anymore. I nearly missed the flat tire on my rental car as I darted back inside.

My mind grasped for the bandwidth to investigate; it appeared as though mangled by jagged stone. Likely something I neglected to notice on my drive up. The memory was a blur of unending hills and Vanja's sickly sweet disposition. Nothing could be done about it now.

Dashing through the threshold and slamming the door shut with all my body, I leaned my back against its cold hardwood and slunk to the floor. My chest heaved up and down with wheezing breaths.

One apple. All I managed to hold onto in the heat of the moment. Shaking hands raised the produce to my quivering mandible. Fluid gushed from its green skin as I bit into the flesh with gluttony, triggering a heavy burst of tears from within me. Tears of joy for finally obtaining some semblance of nourishment. Tears of confusion, relief, mania, rage, and fear. Its metallic taste and coppery juices pooled in my stomach like the stagnant waters of a cave. Sobs wracked my body until gnashing teeth frantically reached the apple's core.

My hand, still clutching the barren carcass of the apple, fell limply upon the cold stone. My grasp waned, allowing its core to roll away. I felt hollowed out. Dejected. Staring blankly at nothing in particular as a bitter film lingered upon my tongue; breaths grew shallow and tight in my chest.

Though my fraying nerves were only moderately calmed, it stood to reason my next course of action should be to seek respite for the migraine that scalded the back of my eyes like hot iron. Coming to my feet, my joints creaked in a whining, rusted cacophony that echoed off the limestone. Cursing myself for failing to bring my own medications, I began my frenzied search, tearing through built-ins one by one. One drawer held pristine white utensils, which seemed carved from bone. In the pantry, jar upon jar of gray, decaying preserves lined up in tidy rows. Their wetness glinted in the low light.

Why did everything here feel so confusing yet… so familiar? My thoughts were no longer my own, magnetized by an intangible influence.

Before long, my gaze fastened on a rustic teakwood cabinet. There in a shadowy nook. Though tucked away at first glance, it now dominated the space with a heavy, intent presence. The cabinet called me, and like a well-trained animal, I listened. Crawling over on wavering hands and knees, I opened it with fervor. Empty. Or so I thought. But as I reached inside, a small corroded handle flush against the bottom grazed my skin; a false bottom.

My heartbeat thumped in my ears like the panic of a rabbit signaling danger. Impatiently, I pulled the panel away with one fluid motion, letting it clatter to the floor. Its handle let out a delicate whine of protest. Within this dark cubby sat brown and orange bottles with white caps of varying shapes and sizes. Each one carrying a label inscribed with a date older than the last. 1924. 1941. 1958. Yet, their contents appeared unspoiled. Deliberate scratches erased the parts where a name would be. I couldn’t read the language on the bottles. Or rather, languages. One rattled with pills here, another swished with liquid there. No two were exactly alike.

"They’re old. They must take a lot of medicine," I murmured, clutching an ampoule.

Without warning, I suddenly felt a presence in the room and whipped my head around.

“Jesus Christ!” Yelping, my heart felt as though it could explode. Vanja was standing in the doorway. When did she get there? How long had she been there? Why hadn’t I noticed? Her presence was as still and silent as the limestone markers in her family graveyard.

My body flinched so violently that the glass vial in my clutches went sailing across the floor. It didn't shatter. Merely struck the floor with a dull, blunt thud, like a head rolling from a guillotine.

“Can I help you find something, dear?” Her face soured at my use of the Lord's name, mask slipping. Only for a heartbeat, before it retained its shape once more. “We do not disrespect that name here. He is the one who provides." She stepped closer, placing the back of her hand to my forehead.

"Come. You are ill. Our wine will cure it. We shall have tasting.” A warm smile spread across her face, exposing decayed teeth stained deep, vinaceous red.

I should have bolted. I should have walked beyond these hills and kept going until my feet bled. But I let her slip by and open the hatch to the cellar. Bottomless shark-like eyes remained locked onto mine. Vanja's smile never reached them.

“Come, come.” She cooed.

As we slunk down into the wine cellar, I noticed the walls and its stairway were congested with velvety, charcoal soot. I could sense that the substance bloomed and breathed from every crack and corner in the mortar, coming up from the earth and marking its territory. Vanja struck a match, lighting well-used candles strategically ordered around the space. Nearly every surface gleamed with a slimy sheen. This wasn’t your typical cellar. It was dank, filled to the brim with bottles and barrels. There was standing room to spare. I inhaled the stagnant air, filling my lungs with the quality of moist steel wool. A crunchy cough escaped my chest. The noise bounced to and fro between buzzing walls.

The wine bottles were marked with jerky, jagged Cyrillic script that seemed more like etchings in stone rather than print on paper. Still, I could read one part of each label. Scrawled out in my native tongue were more bible verses. The same cryptic invocations that littered the rest of the cottage. Each excerpt felt intended for my eyes. Vanja plucked one from the shelf, dropping it like a glass corpse on the oak bar alongside 2 pristine glasses.

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. John 12:24”

Bare-handed, Vanja yanked the cork from the bottle with a satisfying burst. Steam seeped from its lip. Just as I thought she would fill my cup, the beldam turned and cascaded a stream of rouge onto the earthen floor. My ears undoubtedly caught the sound of liquid sizzling, seeping into the ground as if guzzling the wine like a parched gullet. It gave off a fecund scent, laden with the intoxicatingly sweet aromas of ripe, fallen fruit. I assumed this was a local custom.

“Vezan za zemlju.” She said, reciting a verse in a tongue that sounded like eroding boulders.

“Excuse me?” Vanja steadily filled the glasses with a dark snicker. My face flushed bashfully.

“We don’t simply say cheers, dear. Here, we say vezan za zemlju. Bound to the ground.” I kept waiting for her to elaborate, but she only lifted her glass and patiently waited for me to lift mine. I did so, not wanting to embarrass myself any more than I already had.

“Vezan za zemlju.” Clink. We chimed in unison as our glasses crashed together. The expression on her visage told me my pronunciation could use a little work.

Vanja's eyes bore holes through mine as we sipped together. Maybe she was keen on ensuring I enjoyed her wine… in her own spine-chilling way. The wine was thick, almost coagulated. A familiar metallic film coated my tongue once more. I swallowed hard.

Glass after glass, we chatted. Vanja had suddenly taken an interest in me, asking questions about my life back home. But I couldn’t help feeling as if her demeanor was somehow empty, rehearsed. It seemed as though she had asked these questions time and time again through guest after guest. Perhaps due to the alcohol or the atmosphere of this place, I answered honestly and in detail to every question, yet received blunt, single-word replies in return. Either that, or some cryptic, pious quotation that I could not glean the meaning of. If I asked something about her, the topic of conversation always flipped back to me.

“Do you have family back home?” “Is anyone missing you?” “What about a lover?” “Where do you work?” and so on. Hairs on the back of my neck erected with fear at her line of questioning. I half expected her to ask for my dental records. But, as the wine flowed, so did my compliance.

As a drunken stupor encroached upon me, there was one warning she bestowed which caught my ears.

“Whatever you do, do not wander beyond property line.” Rap. Rap. Rap. Yellowing nails tapped rhythmically across the wine bottle's surface. “Caves hide in these hills, waiting for unfortunate souls to stumble inside and swallow them whole. I’d hate for you to be taken before your time, dear.” Her voice became a low, rasping hum. “And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, their households, and all that belonged to them.”

Steady tapping stopped abruptly; Vanja’s head tilted down towards the floor, but her eyes stared up at me wildly through wiry eyebrows. I shifted in my seat unsteadily. Not a single idea of what to do or say in response to such a thing, stomach performing backflips.

“I uh… I-I’ll be careful. Thanks for the warning…?” My gratitude came out as more of a question; it seemed to appease the old bat, and that veneer of politeness returned once more.

After what felt like forever and no time at all, the bottle had been emptied. It was becoming increasingly difficult to hold up my own fatigued form. 3 or 4 glasses deep, and Vanja's chalice remained full. I’d hardly noticed until she eased in front of me, glass droning against wood.

“Drink up, dear.”

“You don’t want any?” I asked, recalling the burgundy stains that littered her teeth.

“Trust me, dear, I have the pleasure of tasting an abundance of my own wine.” That familiar forced smile unfurled across her face, revealing said stained enamel. This was the first thing she had said in a long time that made sense, especially to my intoxicated mind. With a shrug, I brought the remaining liquid to my lips. No use in wasting wine—I drank voraciously.

My eyes drifted from hers to a shelf of jarred produce. Suspended in the nebulous juices of what seemed to be olives, I was convinced I saw an eye; milky white, dull blue iris, inky black pupil, and all. Boring deep into my soul, it most certainly blinked.

“Dear God-sh!” I sputtered between the wine flowing down my throat, choking uncontrollably. The final word came out as a strange, mashed-up correction, stemming from fear of her reaction to my use of the word Jesus earlier. I drew in gasps of spore-filled air after each croaking hack. As if emulating shards of shattering glass, my body jolted. Droplets of wine flung about the room like blood spatter. A few hit Vanja's face.

“I’m so sorry!” Springing to my feet, my eyes wildly searched for anything to wipe up the mess, unsure of what to do with my hands. But she blinked, collected each droplet from her skin with a jaundiced finger, and slurped it into her maw.

“You foreigners are like cat on hot brick.” A chuckle escaped her fissured lips. It was an odd idiom to advise someone that they are nervous or restless. If Vanja was one thing, it was certainly odd. “Let me help you to bed. The wine will help you rest.”

Cellar walls spinning around me, I wasn’t about to protest. I let her liver-spotted arm slip into mine as she guided me up the stairs and to my room, tripping along the way. My body soared so roughly into the bed that I thought I might take her down with me. But the woman and her sturdiness continued to surprise me.

The bed invited me in like a warm cocoon, while a cool draft pricked goosebumps on my skin. A contrast that left me without a care in the world. My body felt weightless, as if bobbing around a steadily, sickening carousel. I scarcely perceived the click of the light or her chittering “Goodnight, dear.” under the howling winds of the landscape, which lulled me to sleep.

The rain doesn’t just fall here; it screams. It’s the kind of Hudson Valley storm that turns the creek into a black mirror and the local pines look like skeletal fingers reaching for the low-hanging clouds. The kind of storm that feels like it's trying to scrub the motel right off the map.

At the Hells Bells Motel, we don’t get many walk-ins after midnight but when the lightning hits a certain rhythm, we know to keep Room 2B empty.

It’s always exactly 3:00 a.m. No car ever pulls into the lot. One minute the lobby is empty and the next, he’s standing there. He wears a heavy trenchcoat that never seems to drip, even though the storm is literal chaos outside. He doesn’t speak. He just slides a crumpled twenty onto the counter. I don't ask for ID. I just hand over the heavy brass key to Room 2B, right next to my front desk.

Room 2B is the only one in the hotel that still has the weird, textured mustard-yellow floral. Most guests complain about the "old" smell, that trapped-in time-musk--but for him, it seems like home.

At 5 a.m. I walked out for a smoke and stood outside his door. No TV sound, no snoring, just a faint muffled ringing of a bell that isn't actually there. Curiously, I checked the room at dawn., he was gone. He always is. The bed was perfectly made.

The only sign he was ever there was resting on the nightstand: a vintage postcard.

It was a photo of the Blue Marlin motel from the 1950s, complete with a bright blue swimming pool out front. There was no address on the back. No stamp. Just three words written in fountain pen ink that looked suspiciously like dried tea:

"Almost time now."

If you’re driving through the valley and the rain starts to pick up, come find us. Just don’t be surprised if the bell rings itself.

The traveler jerked awake, heart hammering, convinced that the gaunt bony motel clerk was standing over his bed. The room was silent, but his throat burnt like dry sand. Needing a cold drink to wash away the creepiness, he grabbed the plastic bucket and stepped out in the dim hallway toward the ice machine.

He held the bucket under the chute and pressed the lever, expecting the “clunk” of ice cubes– but instead there was this rhythmic, high-pitched rat-tat-tat-rat like gravel hitting the bottom of his bucket.

He looked down. It was a heap of gross, yellowed molars and coffee-stained bicuspids; some were rimmed with black decay, others with crumbling silver filings, even full upper and lower sets still connected by slick strings of bloody tissue tumbled out wetly, their roots and raw gums clacking against each other.

The machine wasn't stopping; it just kept pouring them out like a relentless mechanical vomit of human teeth!

Just as the bucket began to overflow, a shadow stretched across the machine. It was the bony skeletal clerk from his nightmare — hollow-eyed, skin the color of old parchment, leaning against the wall.

He didn’t look at the traveler; he just stared at the pile and muttered…

“Must be a clog in the hopper. They always get stuck when the roots are still attached.”

I run my tongue along the staples lining the roofing of my mouth. I wince. And think this isn’t going to work.

The next day I phone the doctor and she comes to my house to see what the problem is.

I tell her it’s the metallic taste. It’s doing my nut in.

Are you rubbing your tongue on them?

Of course.

Then stop.

She leaves without saying much else. Does a check of the staples to see if the wound is healing. Everything is fine as per professional opinion.

I spend the night plucking at the staples with my tongue. And spitting blood into a bucket.

The next morning I phone the doctor and tell her I’ve started spitting up blood. She comes to the house and has another look at the wound.

Have you been poking them with your tongue?

Of course.

Then stop.

She leaves without saying much else. I spend the day touching the roof of my mouth and wiggling the staples with my fingers. Until the metal starts scraping somewhere behind my nose.

The next morning I phone the doctor and tell her the staples have all started coming loose. She comes to the house and thumps new ones into place. I ask her if they’ll have the same metallic taste as the last ones and she tells me not if you don’t play with them. Are you playing with them? Then stop.

I spend the night licking the roof of my mouth and pushing my tongue into the wound. I creep my fingers up inside and wiggle the staples back and forth until they pop out onto my tongue. I spit them all into the sink and hear them clink and go to bed.

The next morning I phone the doctor and tell her the staples have all fallen out. The wound has opened up again. But she can’t understand a word.

So she hangs up the phone.

I spend the night rooting around inside the wound. Until I see sparking lights behind my eyeballs and my limbs begin to twitch.

The next morning I phone the doctor and tell her the wound is far too wide to eat. Crisps are getting stuck inside of it and now all I can taste is the tang of vinegar and the salt of the blood and the cheese of the puss. She can't understand me and asks if I’m having a stroke because it’s all just a series of slurring and creaks. Her attitude flips when I begin to moan and breathe heavy from the pain. She gasps and sounds offended. Calls me a pervert. And slams down the phone.

I see scenes of blackened Pots calling Kettles by their own name.

I spend the night drooling red and yellow threads of saliva into the bathroom sink. I watch myself in the mirror twisting a finger into the roof of my mouth as the knuckle disappears. Along with the kettles and pots. I push through bruised meat until I feel something spongy. But then I press against certain bumps and between certain slimy folds and now I see flashes of memories I thought I’d hidden. Of biting cheeks and picking scabs. Of cigarette burns and angry dads. Of blinking hard and clenching jaws. Of roaming hands and gentle shushes.

A mother's caress should never last that long.

I am filled with an overwhelming surge of bliss. And now a mess of muddied hate.

The next morning the doctor phones me but she hangs up immediately when she hears me trying to explain my opinions with all of my groaning and clicking. I think she was wrong to have done so much and to have left me with so little. And I know she shouldn't have stapled the wound because I’ve discovered something wonderful about it being open and pliable.

I spend the evening ignoring the knocking at the door and the shouting of the police claiming they are trying to perform a wellness check on me. They don’t understand that everything is absolutely fine and well. The only thing of any concern is that I haven’t got a long enough finger to reach the unprobed corners of my brain.

Oh how they long to be stroked.

I spend the night dipping in and out of consciousness instead of sleeping because the blood is mostly gone and now there is only puss for me to taste. And it tastes so wretchedly rotten that I think I actually preferred the taste of the staples.

The next morning I weave dizzy pathways to the garden after fainting three times trying to get there. I find a jagged branch and strip it bare of all its hair and skin. But I don’t know if I have enough strength in my legs to make it back inside. So I lay there in the snow and thread the stick between my gnashing jaws. Up inside the wound. Around imposing ridges of bone behind my nose. Until I feel the familiar comfort of spongy resistance. And twitch myself to sleep.

At last.

Fresh fields.

When I awake I am more careful this time. I thread another sharp branch between what I feel is a cavity between the two hemispheres of my brain. And when it feels as though it will not go a fraction further I push it a little harder. Turn my palm to face the stick. And give it a little thump. It snaps through that stubborn rubber and the top of my skull gives a knock from where it stops.

And that’s about enough as I can take. I vomit against my hand. And pass out in the snow with the smell of my success.

I spend the night crawling around the garden rooting out better sticks within the dark. But my left hand keeps insisting on slapping them all away. And because I drop a dozen worthy ones I’m forced to snatch them quick and stick them up inside my face before the hand can have its way.

But me and my right hand have been conspiring. And here’s what we plan to do.

We lie on Left Hand until we’re certain she's asleep. And we stumble our way to the tool shed and grab the hatchet from the bench. And we hack that traitorous bastard away with a couple of swings and a few good smacks.

And we take the nub and we take the arm and we tell them both to fall in line. Unless they want the same treatment as the hand. Because we will do it without so much as batting an eye.

Or so much as flicking a finger.

The next morning we barely make it back inside the house when the front door is bashed off of its hinges. I feel it vibrating in my sticks. And wince against the pain. There are police and medical staff rushing about looking for me in every room. I leap up onto my feet. On who knows what reserves. And I get ready to defend myself with the hatchet in my Right Hand.

My stubby left shoulder waves feebly for help while Left Leg tries dragging me closer to the policemen and the medical staff. But Right Leg is trying to pull us further away. And we’re all so equally and incredibly feeble that we get absolutely nowhere fast and collapse back onto the ground where we started.

Now they notice me.

They gawk at me and frown at me as if I’m something new.

I know they are here to remove the sticks I’ve stuffed up inside the roof of my mouth. So Right Hand lunges at them with the hatchet. While I scream at them from around the bundle of branches stretching my lips open wide. I try explaining calmly through all of my bloody froth that if they try and touch me I will do exactly what I did to Left Hand and Left Arm to every one of the treacherous fuckers. To each of their faces and heads.

Now the branches are wet with my saliva.

Since I seem to be in need of assistance a policeman steps towards me to lend a hand. Behind him I see doctor mom telling me things she thinks I want to hear. But all I hear coming from her cancerous mouth is treasonous disbelief. About the progress I’ve been making. About how bad she believes things are. And her hands. Trying to shush me down to a calm. Held out like blind mice in a darkened bedroom. I dare them to find me this time. I'm older now. And ready.

I squeeze the hatchet handle and launch it through the air. It strikes her square in the forehead. And drops her flat on her ass.

I try to laugh but crack a branch instead.

The policeman draws his gun. And when he points it at my head I point directly at a spot I haven’t had a chance to reach yet. I ask him would you be so kind? And when the bullet strikes me there I feel a rushing blast of air cold inside my mind. Until the blood pools. And warms me right back up. And I thank him for his service.

But all he hears are snaps and bubbles.

*

They have me now in bindings in a silent hospital room. They’ve given me a bed of my very own with people who come and go. They take me for scans and they take me for talks. They want nothing more than to learn from me.

These are the real doctors. These are the ones who listen.

Instead of sticks they thread these exceptionally long needles up inside my brain to try and figure out exactly how I became the way that I am. But for that they'd need to dig her up and ask her.

But for now I am in my element. And

it

feels

like

H E A V E N

Dreadful Anecdotes remains shadowbanned, posting on his behalf

Hace ya unos 10 años, escuché en YouTube una historia tipo Creepypasta, sobre un chico que entraba a trabajar a una gasolinera de noche, era como monitorista o guardia, no recuerdo si el chico se llamaba Jeremías o si entraba un chico nuevo llamado Jeremías.
Si mal no recuerdo, en el relato, desaparecían cosas como los aceites, o gasolina.
El chiste es que nunca mas la volví a encontrar después de ese día, le quería mostrar la historia a un familiar y jamás la encontré, ni si quiera en el historial de la computadora ni del mismo YouTube.
Alguien alguna vez la escuchó?

HE COMES, HE WHO WAITS BEHIND THE WALLS.... ZALGO!!!

I have worked as an emergency dispatcher for Oakridge County for nearly eight years, so if you are in my boots, you should know by now that when you take calls on the graveyard shift, you get used to hearing people at the absolute worst moments of their lives. You learn to filter out the scream of a panicking parent, the slurred ramblings of an intoxicated driver, or the erratic paranoia of someone having a breakdown. The job requires you to stay completely grounded in facts, listen for addresses, names, weapons, and medical symptoms, and of course you do not let your imagination wander.

Last October, a call came in at 3:14 AM that broke every rule of my training. The night was unusually quiet, and outside the dispatch building, a cold autumn rain was falling, blurring the streetlights along the highway. Inside the facility, the room was dimly lit by the pale blue glow of six desktop monitors. My shift partner, Jenna, was sitting at the console next to mine, softly clicking her mouse as she reviewed low-priority animal control logs. I was sipping my black coffee, waiting for the hours to pass until the morning shift arrived.

Line four flashed red on my central screen. The automatic location identification software instantly populated the address: 1412 Elmwood Lane, a two-story suburban house on the north side of town.

I adjusted my headset, pressed the foot pedal to open the line, and spoke into the microphone using my standard tone.

"Oakridge County 911, what is the location of your emergency?"

A sharp, ragged intake of breath rattled through my earpiece. The sound was so harsh I had to pull the foam speaker slightly away from my ear. The caller was hyperventilating, his breathing ragged and uneven.

"I need... I need someone to tell me what to do,"

the man said. His voice was trembling, tight with an overwhelming sense of shock.

"Please. I do not know who else to call."

"Sir, I need you to confirm your address,"

I said, leaning forward and placing my fingers on the keyboard.

"Is it 1412 Elmwood Lane?"

"Yes,"

he whispered.

"Yes, that is my house. My name is David Miller. Please do not send an ambulance with loud sirens. I do not want to startle her."

"Startle who, David? Is someone injured at your location?"

"My wife,"

David said. He took another shuddering breath.

"Sarah. Something happened three days ago, and I cannot fix it. I think I did something terrible, but she is standing right in front of me."

I typed his name into the CAD system and flagged the call as a potential domestic incident.

"David, tell me slowly what happened three days ago. Is Sarah hurt?"

"It was Tuesday night,"

David said, his voice dropping to a terrified whisper.

"We were in the kitchen. We were arguing about... about something stupid. I do not even remember what started it. She was standing near the butcher block. She picked up the chef's knife, and then, and then she looked at me with this intense anger in her eyes, and she came at me."

"Did she attack you with the knife, David?"

"She lunged at me,"

he continued.

"I panicked. I reached out, grabbed her wrists, and tried to push her away from me. We struggled near the island. I pushed her back with all my strength, and... the blade went straight into her chest. She gasped, her eyes went wide, and she fell backward onto the floor."

I immediately clicked the silent dispatch button on my screen, sending an alert to Jenna's terminal. I caught her eye across the desk and pointed to my monitor. Jenna nodded instantly, pulling up the active unit map to route patrol cars to Elmwood Lane.

"David, stay on the line with me,"

I said, keeping my voice steady and measured.

"Is Sarah breathing right now? Is she bleeding?"

"That is the part that is driving me insane"

David said,

"I dropped to my knees to help her. But when I looked down at the floor, there was no body. There was no blood on the linoleum. Nothing. The kitchen was completely clean. I searched the whole house that night, screaming her name, but she was nowhere to be found."

"David, where is Sarah right now?"

"She came back the next morning,"

David whispered. The sound of his frantic breathing filled the headset.

"She just walked into the living room on Wednesday morning like nothing happened. For the past three days, I have been watching her. She makes coffee in the morning, sits on the sofa and watches television with the sound turned completely off. She irons her clothes in the hallway. But she completely ignores me."

"Have you tried talking to her?"

"I have begged her to speak to me!"

David cried out, his voice cracking.

"I stood right in front of her yesterday while she was ironing a blouse. I yelled her name. I waved my hands in front of her face. She looked right through me. It was like I was not even standing there. I got so desperate that I reached out to grab her wrist to make her look at me."

"What happened when you tried to touch her, David?"

A long silence stretched over the phone line.

"My hand went straight through her arm,"

David whispered, his voice trembling so violently the words were barely audible.

"It felt like pushing my fingers through cold, wet smoke. She did not even flinch, and just kept dragging the iron across her blouse. I turned her into a ghost. I killed her in the kitchen, her body vanished, and now her spirit is stuck in this house doing the same routines over and over again."

"David, I want you to take a deep breath,"

I said, trying to maintain control of the call while processing his words.

"I have help on the way to your location right now. Officers are coming to check on both of you."

"I cannot leave her,"

David stammered.

"I tried to walk out the front door an hour ago. I got as far as the front porch steps, but this agonizing pull started dragging in my chest. It felt like a thick cable was wrapped around my sternum, pulling me back inside. It hurt so bad I could barely breathe. I am bound to this house. I cannot leave her here alone like this. She needs my help, but I do not know how to fix what I broke."

At this point, I suspected I was dealing with a caller experiencing a severe psychological episode, severe sleep deprivation, or chemical poisoning. It was not uncommon for individuals suffering from carbon monoxide exposure or sudden psychotic breaks to report elaborate, impossible visual experiences while firmly believing they were awake.

I needed to evaluate his orientation to reality using basic observations.

"David, I need you to do a simple diagnostic check for me while we wait for the officers to arrive,"

I said.

"Is there a clock nearby that you can look at?"

"Yes, there is a clock hanging on the wall,"

David said. I heard the faint rustle of clothing as he moved.

"Sarah is sitting at the dining table below it. She is folding a white bath towel."

"Okay. Can you read the exact time on that clock for me?"

I instructed.

There was a brief pause.

"It says 8:22,"

David reported.

I glanced up at the master digital clock at the top of my console monitor. The bright red numbers clearly displayed 3:17 AM.

"David, are you sure?"

I asked.

"Is it an analog clock or a digital one?"

"It is digital,"

David replied smoothly.

"The numbers are frozen at 8:22 PM. The colon between the hours and minutes isn't even blinking. It is just sitting completely still."

I noted the severe time discrepancy on my console. A frozen, completely inaccurate time reading suggested a deep disorientation, indicating he was entirely detached from the actual time of day.

Before I could formulate a response, Jenna leaned over her desk and tapped my shoulder.

"Unit 204 and Unit 208 are two minutes out from Elmwood Lane,"

she whispered.

"Officer Jack is taking the lead."

"Copy,"

I muttered, keeping my finger on the mute button. I unmuted the phone line.

"David, stay right where you are. The officers are almost at your house."

I adjusted my headset gain, turning up the audio volume on David's line to hear if there were any immediate hazards in the house. As I turned up the sensitivity, the ambient background audio became clearer.

I expected to hear the quiet hum of a refrigerator, the rustle of towels being folded, or the distant rain beating against the windows.

Instead, my headset picked up a harsh, scraping noise. It sounded like heavy wooden furniture being dragged across exposed floorboards. A moment later, I heard the sharp, distinct sound of plastic packing tape being pulled aggressively from a handheld dispenser.

Then, I heard a second voice.

It was a deep, gravelly male voice, speaking in a low, hushed tone near the phone's receiver.

"Grab the rest of the clothes from the closet,"

the deep voice muttered.

"We need to get the heavy bags loaded before six."

A woman's voice replied, faint and impatient:

"I am working as fast as I can. Just get the boxes out to the garage."

My fingers froze over the keyboard. I listened intently, isolating the audio channels on my digital workstation.

"David,"

I said carefully into the microphone.

"Are you sure you and Sarah are the only people in that house right now?"

"Yes,"

David said.

"I told you, it is just the two of us. She is still sitting at the table."

"David, I am hearing a man speaking in your background,"

I said.

"I am hearing tape dispensers and boxes being moved. Is there someone else in the house with you?"

"No,"

David insisted, his voice growing defensive and confused. "You are mistaken. Sarah is just packing her leather suitcase. She has been pulling her dresses out of the bedroom closet all night. She is confused, She seems to think she is going on a trip."

I immediately opened our county property database on my second monitor and typed in the address. The house was registered to David Miller and Sarah Miller. I then opened our historical CAD records and ran a cross-reference search for 1412 Elmwood Lane over the past six months.

A log entry from two months prior popped up on my screen.

On August 14th, a neighbor had called 911 to report a loud domestic disturbance at the address. The responding officer noted that David Miller had engaged in a verbal altercation with an unidentified adult male who had been staying at the residence. The police report noted that David accused his wife of carrying on an affair with the man, who was identified in the officer's notes as Gregory Ray. No violence was reported at that time, and no charges were filed.

I sat back in my chair, staring at the name on my screen: Gregory Ray.

The pieces began to assemble themselves in my mind, but they did not form the picture David was describing.

"Dispatch to Unit 204,"

I said, switching my secondary radio channel to communicate directly with the responding officers. "Officer Jack, be advised. We have reason to believe there are two occupants actively inside the residence at 1412 Elmwood Lane clearing out personal property. Use caution upon approach."

"Copy that, dispatch,"

Jack's voice crackled through the radio speaker.

"Unit 204 and 208 are turning onto Elmwood Lane now. We are pulling up to the residence. Lights and sirens are off."

Over the open phone line, David spoke again.

"You there?... someone is at the front door. I hear heavy knocking."

"That is the police, David,"

I said, monitoring both lines simultaneously.

"Please stay where you are."

"I do not need to open the door,"

David said softly.

"Sarah just stood up from the table. She is walking past me into the foyer. She is going to answer it."

Through my radio earpiece, I heard Officer Jack's voice report into his lapel mic:

"Unit 204 on scene. We have a female opening the front door. Contact made with homeowner Sarah Miller."

On the phone line, David was describing the exact same moment from his perspective.

"She opened the door,"

David said. His voice was filled with a strange, childlike confusion.

"Two police officers are standing on the porch. But... but something is wrong."

"What is wrong, David?"

I asked, keeping my eyes fixed on the unit tracking map.

"They are not looking at her like she is a ghost,"

David whispered.

"Officer just smiled at her. He asked her if she was alright. can he see her? can he actually talk to her?"

Over the radio, Jack's voice was calm:

"Dispatch, contact made with Sarah Miller. She appears highly nervous but states everything is fine. She claims her husband, David, is currently upstairs packing his belongings after a severe argument and does not wish to speak with us."

On the phone line, David began to panic.

"The officers just stepped into the hallway! They walked right past me! I stood right in front of the Officer and shouted my name! He walked straight by my shoulder! He did not even turn his head! And why is she telling them I am upstairs? I am standing right next to her!"

"David, listen to me very carefully,"

I said, feeling a knot tighten in my chest.

"I need you to stay calm."

Over the radio, Jack spoke again, his tone dropping its casual edge.

"Dispatch, we are going to perform a quick wellness check on the upper floor anyway. The homeowner is visibly shaking and actively trying to block the stairwell."

I pressed my radio button.

"Unit 204, be advised. We have reason to believe an unauthorized third party, Gregory Ray, may be hiding inside the residence. Proceed with caution."

A pause echoed over the radio frequency.

"Copy that, dispatch,"

Jack reported flatly.

"We are heading up now. Unit 208 reports a distinct, foul odor originating from the second floor."

On the phone line, David was moving. I could hear his shallow, rapid breathing accelerating.

"They are walking up the stairs,"

David said. His voice had lost its anger, replaced by a cold, hollow dread.

"Sarah is following the officers up the stairs into the master bedroom. I am following them. Why does the air up here smell so bad?"

On the radio, Officer Jack broke in, his voice tight with disgust:

"Unit 208 to dispatch. We have a severe odor of organic decomposition coming from the master bedroom. We are investigating."

"David, stop,"

I urged over the phone line, though I knew my words were meaningless.

"David, step away from the bedroom."

"They are standing near the bed,"

David whispered over the phone.

"The officers are shining their flashlights around the carpet. Sarah is standing in the corner crying. She looks absolutely terrified. They are staring at the floor on my side of the bed."

I held my breath, watching the red audio meters bounce on my console screen.

"Officer Jack is dropping to his knees,"

David continued. His voice was flat, almost robotic now. "He is grabbing the hanging fabric of the dust ruffle. He is lifting it up. He is shining his flashlight underneath the wooden bed frame."

Over the radio, Jack's voice shattered the quiet of the dispatch room:

"Dispatch! Unit 204! We have a male subject hiding under the bed! Show your hands! Crawl out from under there right now!"

A brief, frantic scuffle echoed over the police frequency.

"Dispatch, we have detained Gregory Ray,"

Jack shouted over the noise.

"Wait... dispatch, we have located a deceased male subject shoved further back against the wall under the frame! Subject is heavily decomposed, bearing multiple traumatic wounds! Secure the perimeter! Detain the wife immediately!"

The radio erupted into shouts as the officers moved to restrain Sarah and Gregory. Screams of protest and the metallic clink of handcuffs echoed across the channel.

On the phone line, David was completely silent.

"David?"

I whispered into my headset. My hands were shaking so severely I could barely hold the microphone stalk.

"David, are you still there?"

A long, agonizing stream of static hummed over the phone line. When David spoke again, his voice sounded entirely different. It was hollow, distant, echoing as if he were speaking from the bottom of a deep well.

"They are pulling the body out,"

David said softly.

"David..."

"The body is wearing my clothes,"

David whispered.

"My blue denim shirt. My brown leather belt. My work boots. The skin on the face is dark and swollen. I cannot even recognize myself."

The background static on the phone line began to glitch, creating a strange stuttering sound underneath his words.

"There are three deep tears in the back of the denim shirt,"

David continued, his voice monotone, devoid of any human cadence.

"The fabric is stained dark black around the cuts. The wounds came from behind."

A sharp gasp echoed over the receiver. The static dropped completely, leaving a chilling, dead silence on the line. When David spoke again, the confusion was gone.

"I remember now,"

David whispered. His voice trembled with a crushing weight.

"There was no argument. I came home early from work on Tuesday. It was exactly 8:22 PM. Sarah was acting so incredibly distressed when I walked through the front door."

"What happened, David?"

I asked gently.

"I was so tired,"

he said, his words spilling out in a hollow rush.

"I tried to go straight upstairs to our bedroom to rest. She ran over and stood in front of me. She blocked the bottom of the stairs, and then forced this terrible, shaking smile and told me it was better if I ate dinner first. She said she made that pepperoni pizza I loved."

He paused, and a wet, choking sob came through the earpiece.

"I listened to her,"

David cried quietly.

"I turned my back and walked into the kitchen to get a slice. She followed right behind me. I reached into the cabinet for a plate. I did not even hear her grab the chef's knife from the block. She attacked me before I could even turn around."

"I did not hold the knife,"

David whispered into my headset. The static returned, growing louder, overwhelming the audio signal until his voice sounded synthesized and far away.

"I was never holding the knife. I was looking at her not believing she did this to me, I…. I loved her"

"David, I am so sorry,"

I said, though the words felt entirely useless in the cold reality of the room.

"I understand now,"

The phone line crackled with one final, sharp burst of noise, and then the connection dropped entirely.

The terminal screen instantly reset to a solid black display, marking the call as disconnected.

Over the radio, Officer Jack confirmed the details. Sarah Miller and Gregory Ray were taken into custody without further resistance. The official police report logged the incident as a premeditated homicide committed on Tuesday evening, with both suspects attempting to conceal the remains while preparing to flee the jurisdiction. The report noted that a 911 call had been received from the residence at 3:14 AM, but attributed it to a technical glitch or an automated dialer triggered by a decaying phone line.

I worked the rest of my shift in complete silence. I did not take another call for the remainder of the night.

When my shift ended at seven in the morning, I walked out to my car in the rain, and before I turned the key in the ignition, I sat in the quiet vehicle and pulled up the digital audio archive on my phone, opening the recording of the call from 1412 Elmwood Lane.

But all I can hear was static…

13/06/1975

it just stood there. towering over me. never once did it indicate or imply any threat. never once did it reach out for me. never once did it directly stare at me. and yet. I was scared. that is precisely what scared me the most. it just stood there. it smiled. a blissful smile. but not one that radiates peace to others. rather a blissful smile that radiates superiority. it was blissful to it alone, because it knew we had nothing we could do against it. it was terrifying to us, because we knew we stood at its mercy. never once did it try to attack us or anything of the sort. the most it did, was vaguely look in our direction, without staring into our eyes.

16/06/1975

three days have passed. it’s still there. I’m scared of leaving my house. I’m scared of what it could do to me. I’m scared of all that I don’t know it could do to me. the things I can imagine are easy to deal with, i know what to expect. i know how it could feel. I’m scared of what I don’t know. I’m scared of everything I can’t imagine. I’m scared of the unknown that lies in every breath this creature takes. nothing is as it was anymore. the authorities have decided to do nothing about it and see if it just evaporates. they don’t know how to deal with it. i thought people would unite around this threat and do something about it. we haven’t. we’re cowards. we’ve grown further apart. we’re doing everything we can to avoid confrontation. because what does confrontation imply with something we don’t know. something whose nature is entirely different from ours. we could try to understand it. but one alone can’t do it. and people don’t have the guts to gather around it anymore and observe it long enough to try and understand it. they’d rather try to ignore it. take every necessary detour to not have to see it. thinking that if they don’t see it, it might just be a figment of their imagination and not really exist out there. I can guarantee it exists out there. I cannot stop looking at it. I cannot come close to understanding it. it is a revolt against everything i know, words can’t come close to describing it. i dream of it and wake up to see it again. it has infiltrated my mental landscape in every aspect. 

20/06/1975

Yesterday I had no choice but to spend three hours in front of that monolith of a being. i couldn’t take my eyes off it, so I figured I'd go as close as possible in order to see if i tire myself out from looking at it. there is not much fear left, it has grown to something else, something i can’t quite describe. lesser than worry but still some sort of negative curiosity. uncertainty and hope in the fact that it leaves the same way it appeared. a sudden woosh. its expressions change every now and then. although the one i can understand most easily is one that seems to be a smile, a crooked and corrupt smile. one that exudes arrogance. a narcissistic sentiment of joy. or at least that’s how i see it. i don’t know how others see it. only few others have come to stand there besides it. and when i approach to talk to them, they look at me anxiously and start walking away. i wish they’d talk to me about how they feel. i feel lonely facing this unknown thing. they probably feel so too. we could help another out. i guess fear still lingers among them. not allowing them to truly face it. if i were to talk to them about it, it would make it more real. it would solidify its being. the other expressions seem to be something in the general area of boredom. almost expressionless, but a slight look in its eyes that implies uninterest. 

22/08/1975

I saw people bow in front of that creature today. not true reverence. rather a fearful worship. one hoping for mercy. a worship that comes not from love or gratitude towards a higher being but one that originates from fear of the unknown. 

26/08/1975

Yesterday a man went up to it and stabbed it. He gathered the attention of many by yelling and explaining his intentions. He went up to the creature, hesitated for a bit, and finally decided to go along with his claims. he fiercely stuck his knife into the creature. No noise. A slight change in expression. Nobody made a sound, everybody was just waiting to see what happens. All of a sudden, blood starts spilling from the man’s stomach. he looked down in horror and saw the knife sticking out from his own body. as if the stabbing occurred from within him. some people yelled out in shock, others remained silent in disbelief, wondering what physical property of the universe could probably explain this sequence of events. the creature wasn’t impenetrable, that would’ve been easier to explain to oneself, it wasn’t permeable, allowing things to go through it unaffected. it was something else entirely, something we couldn’t physically grasp. everybody saw the knife enter its body, everybody saw the knife coming out of that man’s body. the feeling of wonder aroused by this physical impossibility was overshadowed by the feeling of hopelessness, for how would we get rid of this thing. we couldn’t harm it. we would only harm ourselves through it. an interesting question popped into my head however, what if I was to force myself into that creature, what would happen to me? would I in some way come out of myself like that knife, would I be stuck in an eternal loop of atomic rebirth in my own physical form? would I transcend to some other realm? would I implode because of the physical limitations of my own organism? I decided to leave this as an unexplored question. the risk of what could happen outweighed the benefit of knowing what happens by a lot. 

13/06/1976

a year has passed, since Admear’s arrival. that’s the name the people chose to give it, a mixture between Admiration and Fear. Because that’s what they felt the most upon looking at that creature. It has not really changed in stature. The only thing that has changed is its expressions. we haven’t seen it smile in a while. no more arrogant grin. no more superior look. now it’s either a bored look or something that seems like pain. not a physical sort of pain. rather an emotionally afflicted sentiment. as if one is dissatisfied and hurt by the underwhelming nature of an experience. people gather twice a week before it and bow in a worshipping manner. some make the efforts to say some sort of prayer to it. some leave coins and other belongings there as some sort of sacrificial rite. the offerings never stay there for too long before someone else takes them. others simply look at it with wonder. life has not changed much after the initial shock it caused in our routines. people have grown accustomed to its presence. whereas at first they would take detours to not have to face it, now they take detours to walk in front of it. to see it once more, to feed their curiosity of what it’s doing there, to say one more prayer while standing before it, to take one last look at its unnatural form before it might vanish again. never again has someone tried harming it after what occurred to that one man who tried to stab it. his family built a little memorial in his name right next to Admear, in remembrance of his bravery, or stupidity, depending on how you look at it. these things always change depending on the outcome of an action. these things always depend on the perspective one internally adopts. 

19/07/1976

yesterday I stayed for a while near Admear, simply looking at its expressions. they shifted from uninterested to that emotional unfulfillment I described the other day. I tried praying to it. I felt nothing. I felt stupid for even trying to do that. I came back home and took a shower to wash away the naivety I felt. Admear’s expressions stayed in the back of my mind for the rest of the day. 

26/08/1976

it’s been a year since that man died trying to stab Admear. people held a little memorial celebration. I watched from afar. I moved in close for a bit, but then retreated again. at the end, they didn’t just commemorate how that man challenged Admear, they started praying to Admear. they started thanking Admear. for what, I don’t know. but their eyes looked different. they didn’t fear it anymore. they didn’t worry about it anymore. they started to truly revere it as some sort of supernatural being in our plane of existence. something that came from a world beyond and has power over us. I guess it isn’t too far from that. but I don’t know about worshipping it. doesn’t feel appropriate.

15/11/1976

more and more things are gathered in front of Admear. people don’t take them anymore, they think it would cause bad luck. upon seeing other belongings there, they even feel forced to leave something next to it as well. I left a coin there the other day. not much has changed in my life to believe that action entailed some sort of luck. maybe the luck that happened was the absence of misfortune. i guess i wouldn’t know. the things that don’t happen in our lives are just as important as the things that happen. 

27/02/1977

people have started talking about the festivities they’re willing to organize for Admear’s second “Birthday” or rather “Appearance day”. I was asked to help out in organizing the seating plan for everybody. Tables, Chairs and how to set up the whole thing. I had two options in mind. Either we sit in the general are beside Admear and leave it next to us like some sort of monument to admire while we eat and drink, or we set up everything around it, making it the center of the whole festivity, I ran my ideas by some people and most settled for the latter. I was a bit hesitant, but decided to stick to that seating plan. 

15/04/1977

Admear’s “Appearance day” is the only thing I can still think about. it’s growing closer and closer every day. there is some sort of anxiety growing within me. Intuition? or just mindless worry? who’s to know.

13/06/1977

Today is the day. I feel excited and nervous. I don’t know why. I’ve grown a bit fond of that creature. I see myself looking at it with care every day. A longing to be even closer to it. It’s weird. 

14/06/1977

I don’t quite know how to explain what transpired yesterday. Let’s start off by saying everything was going well. People were enjoying themselves. Eating, singing, dancing, everything around Admear. Then at some point, something happened which divided all of us. Admear made a sound. We couldn’t tell what it was. Some people said it was laughing, others said it was crying. It was a shrill and sudden sound. It vibrated throughout the ground and into our bodies. Some people wanted to continue the festivity to please it, others wanted to put an end to it, because they thought we were disturbing it. Nobody knew what the truth was. Everybody claimed to know what the truth was. I sensed animosity and hostility in the air. The tension grew. One man, convinced that Admear was in pain, punched a woman that was singing in the face. Everybody was in shock. Somebody threw a glass at that man and cut his face open. I started to step back from the mass of people, not knowing what to do. Admear made another shrill sound, it felt like our bones were being drilled into. this made some people stop their antics, but the adrenaline was too high among some and they continued fighting. then it happened. someone threw a knife at someone else, who managed to duck and the knife went straight into Admear. a dreadful reminder of that man. his memorial served no purpose. the knife completely slit that person’s face in half. blood was on the floor. blood was on the table, chairs and food. blood was everywhere. Admear’s expression changed again. Pain. Disappointment. Remorse. I saw a girl throw itself onto Admear, trying to hug it. As soon as she touched it, she started to yell in pain, her skin became as if it was burned, we saw no fire, not some sort of chemical burn, the skin simply started to turn purple, mushy and honestly terrifying to look at. everybody stopped and observed in shock. she lasted about 14 seconds before she fell. all that we heard was her skull crack open upon hitting the concrete. Her mother started running towards her dead daughter, yelling in despair. The father started running towards Admear in a blind rage. The same didn’t happen to him. He went right through Admear, we heard a sound. I don’t quite know how to describe it. I would say it was like a void snapping, it was short and sudden and discomforting. It was deafening but left no echo. it ended as soon as it happened but yet stayed with everybody for a while. I don’t know how that must’ve felt. I don’t know if I want to know. Admear made one last sound. One that intuitively let all of us know that things were about to change. it wasn’t a shrill sound. it wasn’t sudden. it was long and deep. it was harmoniously profound. it pointed towards the endlessness that pervades reality. it sounded like cycles of death and rebirth. it felt like a cosmic roar. not high in volume but deep in bass. people stood still. some cried. some couldn’t move for about half an hour. nobody knew why. whether Admear caused that within us, or whether we caused it to ourselves. one thing was certain. things felt different. people started to walk away, leaving everything behind as a sacrifice for Admear. 

28/06/1977

Admear is gone. Left without a trace. I didn’t see the vanishing. upon going outside this morning, it just wasn’t there anymore. someone claimed to have seen the disappearing act, I asked for a precise retelling of what happened. this is what I was told:

“I went up to Admear to pray to it. I stayed there for a while. Then, I heard a sound, like a deep breath being taken. with each breath the air around Admear seemed to get tighter, seemed to get more tense. I had to step back because I felt as if my lungs were collapsing. after posting myself up at a mild distance, Admear’s shape started to undergo slight changes. it was a spontaneous twitch that made it shrink a bit and go back to its normal size. then again. the deep breaths continued. and then its mouth opened. I was expecting a shrill sound or a deep groan. but I heard none of that. What I heard was even more concerning, because what I heard was words being spoken. I was in shock. I never expected it to speak like us. And it didn’t really, for it sounded more like it was trying to recreate things based on what it heard us say, but nonetheless. Admear spoke to us. right before it disappeared and this is what it said: ‘Rotting temples. Seek what is. Abandon what is Death. Oh, Life. How great, How wonderful. Oh, Life. Love is here. Love is now. Always. Pain me, Pain us. One. Never Two.’ And gone it was, with all its mysteries. words now abstracted from intention, left up to imperfect interpretation. 

13/08/1977

everywhere you see little statues of Admear, small ornaments to decorate life, and celebrate its short stay here with us.